


Every Day is Exactly the Same

by kijilinn



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Drug Use, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Nudity, Short & Sweet, The Author Regrets Nothing, nothing happens, seriously, they just walk around and do stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 02:23:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 32,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13067151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijilinn/pseuds/kijilinn
Summary: I found him shivering in a stairwell, trying to scrape together enough meth for another hit. He held a gun on me, threatened to blow my head off. So what could I do? I married him.Note: Chapters are interconnected and organized chronologically. This means I may be adding chapters between other chapters occasionally as I write them.





	1. Kissing Prompts: Breaking Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for verbal abuse and threats of physical abuse.

I woke up sharply to the sound of someone screaming. It was muffled through the walls of the house, so I had a pretty good idea of the source. I got up and pulled a robe around me, walked through my house and leaned my forehead against the sliding glass door that looked over my back yard. A man knelt in the patchy grass, his hands over his face as he slowly rocked back and forth. He had fallen briefly silent, but it didn’t take long for Trevor to start screaming again. 

He had been living with me for about two weeks now. I hadn’t asked much of Trevor, only that he bathe and brush his teeth regularly and let me wash his clothes occasionally. This had not been my requirement. I hadn’t even considered it.

Trevor Philips was going clean.

He balled his fists into what little hair he had left and screamed again, inarticulate and empty. His skin was covered in angry scratches, most of which he had let me dress at one point or another. I could see from where I stood that he was shaking. I wondered about the temperature and sighed, taking a blanket from the couch and pulling shoes on before I walked onto the deck and down the stairs. “Trevor,” I said quietly.

Slowly, he lifted his head and stared at me with wild eyes. He had been wild-eyed when I had first met him, but this was something else entirely. There was confusion and pain in his face now and a despair that I recognized entirely too well. “What.”

I held out the blanket to him. “You’ll freeze.”

“Good.”

I sighed and spread the blanket over his shoulders. “Not good.” He tried to shrug it off, but I kept my hands on his shoulders. “Please, keep the blanket on.”

“Why.”

“Because it’s cold out here and I don’t want you sick.”

Trevor let out a hollow laugh. “Sick. I’m sick alright. Too late.” He swayed a little on his knees, his gaze unfocused on the middle distance. “Your grass is dead.”

“I know.” 

“It’s more moss than grass.”

“I know.” 

Trevor hitched in another breath and started to scream again, his hands in claws and coming at his face. I reached automatically and caught his wrists before he could hurt himself. He was strong, but I was healthy. “Let me go!” he hollered and wrenched himself out of my hands. He staggered to his feet and glared at me, hands fisted. “Let me go,” he repeated in a hoarse whisper. “Why are you keeping me here?”

“I’m not,” I whispered back.

“What do you want from me!?” he screamed in my face and came the remaining two steps between us. “Let me go!”

“I’m not holding you,” I told him.

His eyes flashed and he pulled one arm back like he would hit me. I waited, tilted my head slightly so the strike wouldn’t damage my glasses. A long moment passed before Trevor gasped and put his arm down. “Why?”

“Everyone deserves a home.”

Trevor dropped back down to his knees and hugged his head with a low groan. He rocked slowly back and forth at my feet, moaning. I stepped away from him to pick up the blanket and wrap it over him again. “I don’t know what you want,”  he groaned quietly. “I’m nothing, bitch. I got nothing. Don’t you understand?”

“I want nothing,” I whispered. He moaned again and I took a step back. “There will be coffee when you’re ready,” I told him quietly. 

I had turned back to climb the stairs to the house again when something hit me from behind. The blanket wrapped over my face and I yelped in surprise. Trevor hauled me off of my feet and pinned me to the spongy ground, straddled my chest and held his hands over my throat. “Fuck you!” he screamed at me. “Fuck you and your coffee! Fuck you and your soap and toothpaste and blankets! Fuck you!” His hands constricted and I closed my eyes. 

I had always known there was a chance he would kill me. Surprisingly enough, it didn’t bother me. My things were in order. I was at peace with my family. I might not be very old, but death didn’t bother me, either. 

His hand started to shake before I started to black out and I waited. Slowly, Trevor let me go and dropped his head down to my shoulder. He sobbed with his arms framing my head. He pounded one fist against the ground and strangled another scream before he rasped, “I’m nothing. I don’t understand.”

I lay very still, then turned my head and opened my eyes to look at him. His face was pinched closed and he was breathing hard, cheeks red and the circles under his eyes darker than I had ever seen them. “If killing me will help, you can.”

HIs eyes popped open and he stared at me, first in confusion, then in despair. Slowly, he ran one palm over my face and bent his head. “I don’t want you hurt. Not by me. Not by anyone.” When I didn’t answer, he looked at me again and stroked his fingers down my face. “You’re crazier than I am.”

I smiled at him and lifted my hands to touch his face. “We know our own.” 

He gathered me up and kissed me, clinging to me and rocking slowly as tears continued to work down his face. I could feel his apology, his confusion, his aching hope that he hadn’t destroyed whatever was growing here. When he let me go again, Trevor just looked at me like he was waiting for a reprimand. “Y-you said… there was coffee?” he finally whispered.

I sat up and curled my arms around his neck, pulled him to me when he started to cry in exhaustion rather than fury. “There’s coffee,” I murmured in his ear. “In my house, there’s always coffee.”


	2. Gehenna: Torch It

“Now that is a respectable conflagration.” Trevor trudged down the hill to stand beside me in the snow. He had his shoulders shrugged up to his ears to tuck as much of his face into the tall collar of his parka as he could and it made him look vaguely mushroom-esque. I smiled and leaned against him, still facing the leaping flames. “What did that poor couch ever do to you?”

“It was between me and something I wanted. So I blew it up.” I stamped the ground with my garden rake and nodded fiercely. “And it’s two couches. The old red sofa’s in there, too.”

“That’s my girl,” Trevor chuckled and hugged me with one arm, his fingers still pulled up inside the sleeve. “Voted most likely to torch a couch on the lawn.” He kissed my temple and we watched the fire leap and dance as the old furniture began to collapse in on itself. 


	3. Gehenna

“Does Gehenna still burn?” 

I looked up at Trevor and grinned. “Yeah, apparently. Seriously, anyone who ever wrote fantasy hellscapes must have spent some amount of time staring into a trash fire.” Trevor pulled his hands out of his pockets and hugged me from behind, his chin resting on my shoulder as we stared at the smoldering, fire-spitting pit. “I’m still trying to figure out what’s spiraling flame out over there.” I pointed toward a dark-sided cavern with a yellow-white flame tumbling into licks of red as it reached open air.

“Looks like a log,” Trevor murmured. “Or maybe that’s the hellmouth.” 

I snorted and turned my head away from him. “Speaking of hellmouth, are you out of toothpaste?” I could feel him grinning and he pressed his mouth against my shoulder to mumble something that sounded like “sorry.” I smiled, reaching back to let my fingers rest against his neck. “Live in my house, you bathe and brush your teeth. That’s all I ask.”

“Well, that and no active meth labs.”

“That, too.”

Trevor was silent for a long moment. I shrugged him off to rake at some of the smoking bits until they popped up in flames, exposing a long trench of semi-molten roof shingles underneath. When I returned to lean on his chest again, he sighed through his nose. “Living with you is not easy.”

“I know.” I reached back again and he leaned his cheek against my hand. “It’s worth it, though. Right?” He didn’t answer right away, so I leaned back to look at him upside-down. “Right?”

Trevor started to nod, then paused. “Usually.”

“Sixty-forty?” I asked him quietly.

“Seventy-thirty,” he replied. We stood and watched the fire popping and hissing for a while, then he hugged me a little tighter around the middle. “Worth it enough for me to stay. But it’s still not easy.” When I didn’t answer, his face turned toward me and he pushed his nose against my scarf. “I need a nap. How long do you think this fucker is going to burn?”

“It’s going on four days,” I admitted with a shrug. “At this point, I’m thinking we may need a betting pool on how long it’ll burn.” Trevor shifted, then nodded without lifting his head. “Nothing’s keeping you out here with me,” I reminded him.

“Naps are colder without you.” 

I closed my eyes and smiled.


	4. Christmas with Trevor: Part One

A host of tiny points of light dimly lit the living room from the branches of a vaguely Charlie Brown-esque artificial tree. Only two thirds of the lights wound into the branches worked anymore, so the attached lights were supplemented by a string of glowing paper lanterns hanging from the lowest branches. Ornaments glinted as air currents shifted them, most of them plastic Hallmarks or childhood mementos. I stopped beside the partition between the kitchen and the hallway and leaned against the wall for a second, just watching how the lights played across the walls.

I loved this house. It was the first house I had ever owned. Well, the bank owned it, but it was my name on the deed. I walked forward to crouch beside the Christmas tree and smiled when I found the sequined cardinal my grandmother had made for me.

Movement behind me drew my attention again and I looked over my shoulder to where Trevor sat on the couch. The couch itself faced the television on the wall and sat perpendicular to the tree, but he was sitting cross-legged and facing the tree, eyes wide and reflecting the lights. I watched him watching the lights and smiled slowly.

“Christmas.” Trevor’s voice was hushed, rustier than usual like he had been coughing. “Why the hell am I here? At Christmas time? I’m wearing a clean shirt. It smells like coffee and vanilla and ginger in here. I can smell. You know how long it’s been since I could smell anything other than cat piss?” I stood up and walked over to sit on the wedge portion of the sectional couch behind him. When I reached up to spread my hands over his back, Trevor twitched a little, not quite drawing away. “Why am I here? I don’t belong here. I belong in a trailer somewhere, either sleeping off a crazy high or tweaking out again.” I scooted forward until he let me lean against him, my arms around him. “Why am I here?” he whispered, barely even audible but tangible through his back.

“The greatest miracle of all,” I sang softly, “is how I need you and how you needed me too.” I felt him laugh, just a short rocking of his shoulders before he sighed and leaned back. I rocked backwards with him until I was leaning against the corner of the wedge chair and Trevor was flopped across me with his head on my shoulder. “You needed me. I could do something. So you’re here.” I ran my palm over his forehead, felt his face relax. “You belong here. You’re home.”

“You know that makes no fucking sense, right?” he murmured. “What possible fucking reason could you have to drag me off the street, stick me in clean clothes and make me brush my teeth?” 

We lay in silence for a while, then I shifted so I could whisper in his ear: “I see you. I know you.” I felt him twitch again and smiled, nosing against his ear. “I see the parts you try to ignore too long and then feel weird about when they finally start to leak out. I know how badly you need physical contact and how weird it feels to ask other people for that. I know you’re lonely in the same ways I am but neither of us really knows how to deal with it.”

Wordlessly, Trevor rolled over in my arms and buried his face in my shoulder. I worked my fingers up into his hair, resting my palm against the back of his neck. He hugged me fiercely, then gasped in like he had been holding his breath. “I keep wondering when I’m gonna wake up.”

“You don’t have to,” I murmured. “Just stay with me. We’ll figure it out.” When he lifted his head to stare at me, I smiled and ran my fingers down his cheek. “We will. I promise.” He burrowed back against my shoulder and I sighed, letting my head lean back on the pillowed couch.


	5. Christmas with Trevor: Part Two

Sometime in the night, Trevor woke up and rearranged us. He settled me on my side with my back against the couch and dragged the fleece blanket from the back of the couch over me, tucked one of the throw pillows under my head. I woke up during this process, but smiled and held my arms out to him when he made like he was going to sleep somewhere else. He hesitated at first, then crawled under the blanket with me, wrapped himself around me and exhaled, his back facing the rest of the room. “Don’t wake up,” he whispered.

“I’m not,” I whispered back and settled back into the pillow. Trevor tucked his face under the blanket a little and I felt his breathing even out as he fell back to sleep. I had lied: I was very much awake but it wasn’t his fault. So I listened to his breathing, let myself sink into the couch and into his arms. 

I found him eight months ago, huddled in a stairwell and desperately trying to scrape together enough crystal for a hit. We had stared each other down; he called me Batgirl. I called him handsome. Nothing was really ever the same after that. First, he had come to my house for the night, then I found that I couldn’t imagine my house without him. In that span of time, he bathed regularly, brushed his teeth, dressed in clean clothes and let me do his laundry when I did my own. He learned how to operate my little 5-cup coffee maker and made sure there was coffee when I came home. Ours was a strange domesticity, but it worked. It comforted us both.

And he stayed clean. I hadn’t required that of him, just that he make an effort to not actively stink up my home--thus the bathing and brushing of teeth. Trevor had decided that stipulation on his own. It had been hard for him. Bugs under his skin had sent him stalking around my back field at odd hours, occasionally screaming himself out and kicking things. I caught his hands once to clip his fingernails so he wouldn’t hurt himself scratching and he screamed at me, called me a manipulative whore and a controlling bitch, dozens of horrible things that would have hurt more if we knew each other better. He apologized immediately, his face ashamed and his hands shaking. The worst had been the spiraling depression. He fell into it hard about two weeks into his detox. It had always been there like a purpling bruise under the skin, but it overwhelmed him and utterly flattened him. He stopped eating, stopped getting out of bed, stopped talking. 

So I asked him to marry me. The baffled expression on his face had been incredibly rewarding and the question had pulled him out of his own thoughts long enough so we could have a conversation. I had laid it out to him logically, simply: he needed help, help that I couldn’t give him on my own. If he was serious about getting clean, he was going to have to get serious about managing the depression, too. If we were married, he could be covered by my insurance and that would make the treatment he needed actually achievable. 

“Saved my life.” I blinked and refocused on Trevor’s face. I hadn’t noticed when his eyes had opened again, but he was watching me in the dim light from the still-lit Christmas tree. “May never understand why, but you did.” He drew his hand up between us, looking for mine until he could lace his fingers between mine and squeeze. 

“Go back to sleep,” I whispered at him with a smile. 


	6. Christmas with Trevor: Part Three

I stood by the kitchen sink, peeling a hard boiled egg over the open trash can. The coffee pot continued to croak like a dying bullfrog and Trevor’s snores drifted to me from the couch. Once he got there, he slept so much harder than I did that I had easily slipped away from him this morning in time to get breakfast and coffee at my normal 6 AM. Some habits die hard.

In spite of the marriage license locked in my file cabinet, Trevor spent more nights than most on the couch. Sometimes I was there with him, sometimes I wasn’t. I had told him he was more than welcome to share the bed with me, but I didn’t push him about it, either. Our relationship was one of convenience, simply on paper to allow him access to the medications he needed. We didn’t wear rings. We kissed each other, touched each other because it felt good, because one or both of us needed the comfort of being close. We’d had sex that first night in a blind, hungry flash, but that craving had gone as quickly as a snuffed candle and replaced with an easy companionship where his body was welcome against mine and vice versa. Neither of us had said “I love you.” But I had promised to take care of him, in sickness and health and I meant it.

I heard Trevor snort himself awake, then grunt and stretch to the creaking of the couch springs. “I love this couch,” he groaned and I grinned. 

“Me, too. S’why I bought it.”

Trevor came to stand behind me, a warm presence at my back while he put one hand comfortably on my hip. “Good morning,” he murmured and leaned down to kiss my shoulder.

“Good morning,” I smiled back and reached over my shoulder without looking to offer him the peeled egg in my hand. “Egg?”

“No, thanks,” he chuckled. “Not hungry yet.”

“Egg?” I repeated, as if he hadn’t spoken.

“I’m good.” Trevor kissed my shoulder again. “Besides, that one’s yours.”

“ _ ¿Juevo? _ ” I said with a little more edge and wiggled the egg at him. “I can peel another one.”

“No, really,” he laughed, “I’m--”

I turned and stuffed the egg towards his face. With rolled eyes, Trevor opened his mouth and accepted it. “Just eat the damn egg, Trevor.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled around the egg before taking a bite and eyeing the yolk inside. After he swallowed, he said, “How the hell do you always make perfect eggs? They’re never green or slimy.”

“Timer, then wash them in cold water afterwards,” I replied as I started to peel a second egg. “Or I’m magic.” I batted my eyes at him and he snorted. Trevor finished off the other half of his egg and came to stand close to me again, resting both hands on my hips this time. “Sleep okay?” I asked him.

“Mostly.” Trevor pressed his face into my hair, took a deep breath and exhaled again. “Is it weird and creepy to say you smell good?”

“I think you’re allowed,” I chuckled. “Score one for Herbal Essences.”

Trevor shook his head. “It’s not just your conditioner. It’s the lavender shampoo and whatever that generic green soap is and…” He paused to snuffle right down to my neck, making me squirm and giggle ticklishly. “Vanilla,” he mumbled into my hair. “Right at your skin. I like it.”

“Do you?” I grinned and tilted my head so he had more room to explore. “No idea why. I never wear anything vanilla.”

Trevor stopped with his lips barely pressed to the skin of my neck and I felt something shiver up my spine, something new and different between us. “Don’t change it,” he whispered. “Whatever it is, don’t… it smells like home.”

I smiled and nodded. “Okay. I won’t.”


	7. Gehenna: Still Smoldering

Trevor’s voice carried across the field and I had to slap my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing loud enough for him to hear. “You have got to be fucking kidding me!” He turned back toward the house and waved his arms in exasperation. “It’s still burning!”

“I see,” I shouted back, then pulled my hiking boots on without tying them and shrugged into my ski jacket before tromping through the frost-brittle grass to join him. “This makes, what, six days?” Trevor counted quickly on his fingers and nodded. “There’s new flame.” I took the garden rake from him and stirred the smoldering shingles, watching the nascent flame pop towards the sky and huddle back into its hiding place again.

“I can see smoke in that nasty overgrowth, too,” Trevor said and pointed. The honeysuckle that had taken control of the trash pit in between burnings was now merrily puffing away about five yards from the fire’s original location. “Should we be worried?”

“Probably.” I eased myself through the clustered vines until I could reach the puff of smoke. With the rake, I pulled enough leaves back to get a look at what was burning beneath. “Yeah,” I sighed slowly. “It’s getting into the fallen leaves now. That’s pure tinder and the snow’s all melted off now.” I grimaced and looked up at him. “Do you know where the outside connection for the hose is? And the water turn-on?”

Trevor considered, then nodded. “The hose won’t reach, though, will it?”

“We’ll have to carry buckets,” I sighed. 

“Fuck me,” Trevor groaned in disappointment and I grinned.

“Maybe later.”


	8. Gehenna: Countermeasures

I held the hose over an empty five-gallon bucket, watching it fill with well water. When one was about half-full, I transferred the hose over to the other bucket beside it. They’d be easier to carry half-full than completely full. I blinked in surprise when Trevor reached to take them and replace them with another pair of empty ones.

“I can take those,” I told him quickly. “Hold the hose.”

Trevor’s smirk made me hang my head for leaving the opening. “I like it better when you hold the hose.” He pursed his lips at me and started carrying them down the hill to the still smoking fire pit. I pulled the empty buckets to me and began filling them, just in time for Trevor to dump the water over the smoking edges of the fire. Smoke billowed up from wherever he overturned a bucket.

Gehenna still burned. From where I stood, I could hear the simmering trash hiss and squeal when the cold water sloshed over it. It was still mostly just the old shingles and construction trash, but the tendrils of flame we had found yesterday were still stubbornly sending up their smoke signals. We had spent almost two hours dumping well water on the fire last night and, while it had helped, it still hadn’t solved the problem. 

“Gehenna is angry,” I said to Trevor when he came to switch out the buckets again. He was breathing harder than usual. 

“Can you hear it up here?” he grinned back. “It screams.” He placed the empties for me to refill and started back down the hill.

“Pterodactyl screams!” I shouted after him and he gave a half-strangled scream in reply. When the buckets were nearly capacity again, I turned off the valve on the hose and began carrying them down to meet Trevor coming back up. “Did you check in the back, towards the woods?” Trevor shook his head, still winded. He reached for my buckets and I shook my head, holding them back from him. “Fill the empties and let me carry for a while.”

“I’m fine,” he wheezed and coughed away from me into his fist. “I’m stronger than you are.”

“I haven’t been rotting my insides with drugs for the last twenty years,” I shot back and he glared at me. “Just processed meat and cheese and alcohol and the last part only for the last five.”

“Dammit, now I want a beer,” Trevor grumbled and headed past me to start the hose running again. 


	9. Christmas with Trevor: Part Four

I collected peanut butter and bread, skim milk, cans of soup and Spaghettios, a head of romaine and another of green lettuce, cherry tomatoes. I could hear Trevor’s footsteps behind me as he explored the shelves of the grocery store. “Nutella?”

“Not this time,” I chuckled. “This is an essentials run, hon.”

“Nutella is essential,” Trevor countered, turning the largest jar on the shelf in his hands. When he checked my face, he sighed and put it back before joining me at the cart again. “We need pasta,” he murmured. “Used the last of the elbow noodles.”

“Is there any fettucini?” I asked and he shook his head. “Two boxes of that, then.” I added the dry pasta to the cart. “We still have frozen chicken?” 

“I think so.” Trevor stopped to consider, then nodded. “At least two packages and the bag of chicken patties.” As we continued to the deli for sandwich meat, Trevor fell into step beside me. “Can I kiss you?” he whispered.

I blinked and grinned at him. “Here? In the middle of the Food Lion deli?”

Trevor’s face was serious and he nodded, stepping a little closer and putting his hand on the handle of the cart to stop it. “Yeah. Here. Been thinking about it all morning.”

I studied his face, taking in the lowered brow, the concerned expression. He looked like he was puzzling over something and had no idea where it was going. “Yes,” I whispered. “You can kiss me.”

He slipped his hand along my jaw, tender and careful before he pressed his mouth to mine. I tried not to smile at the taste of toothpaste and unflavored lip balm. His other hand wrapped around my waist and I caught my breath when he pulled me close. It was rare for us to be seen openly showing affection and I tried not to think of all the small town gossip that would start now. I was already an eccentric for bringing a scruffy, tattooed stranger into my home for so long. Nobody knew I had married him, too. Trevor kissed me with a focus that surprised me, though. Even at home, our kisses tended to be brief and fond rather than intense and sensual.

When he released me, I whispered, “What brought that on?” I tried to hide my own dizziness by leaning against him lightly with my palms on his chest. 

Trevor kept his hand against the side of my neck, tilted his forehead to rest against mine. “What are you doing to me?” he breathed. “I’m a fucking freak. Why am I here looking for pasta sauce and a decent bunch of bananas? Why am I here with you? This doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Doesn’t have to,” I murmured and stood on my toes to kiss his lips lightly. “I’m here if you need me. For as long as you need.” His arms wrapped around me tightly and I smiled as I snuggled into his embrace. “You little fucker,” I started to giggle. “You fucking stole my deodorant!”

Trevor started to laugh, first a small sound that spread until he had to tip his head back to let it out. “I told you, you smell good. Is that a crime now?” I playfully swatted at his face and he ducked away, grinned at me and dashed down the pharmacy aisle. “Help me pick out something better, if you bugs you.” Following his infectious laughter, I pushed the cart into the aisle and after him.


	10. Christmas with Trevor: Part Five

I checked the terrarium on the window sill in the kitchen. Moss covered the mulch at the bottom and a small sprig of lemongrass wiggled when I tapped the glass to clear the condensation. Behind me, the stockpot was bubbling eagerly and I heard the package of fettuccine sliding into the water. “Salt or no salt,” Trevor asked me.

“No salt,” I murmured and turned away from the plants. “Salt’s just for flavor and neither of us need the extra sodium.” I stepped closer to peer into the boiling water as Trevor stirred. “Beer or wine with dinner?”

“Do I have to drink the wine out of a fancy glass and sniff it first?”

“I’ll let you drink it out of the bottle, if you really want to.”

Trevor chuckled and shook his head. “Naw, water’s fine. Drinking makes my head feeling funny on this new med.” 

“Is it working okay?” I asked. I settled my arms around his waist and leaned against his back while he stirred the pasta to keep it from sticking. 

“I think so.” He was quiet for a while before whispering, “I wish I knew what normal felt like. Doc keeps talking about getting me back to normal and I don’t even know what that is.”

I smiled with my cheek against his back. “I know that feeling. I had a little bit of it when I realized when I started getting help that I hadn’t been… whatever passes for normal since I was like eight or nine. I’ve always been depressed, always been anxious. No fucking reason for it, ‘cept the chemicals in my brain.”

Trevor’s silence stretched and I propped my chin between his shoulder blades, curious as to where his mind was. “Why are you lonely?” he asked suddenly, more into the pot of pasta than to me. 

“I’m not,” I said with a shrug, still leaning close.

“Liar. Don’ lie to me, babe. We know our own.” Trevor fished a noodle out of the pot and blew on it until it was cool enough to handle. “Kinda chewy still.” He handed it back for me to test.

“Another minute or so, maybe,” I agreed. “Honestly, I’m not,” I continued. “Not when you’re here. I like being with you, Trevor. Not everyone can appreciate the difference in flavor between the colors of gummy bears or spend a week ankle-deep in semi-toxic couch ash with me.” I spread my hand against his belly and considered for a second the texture of his shirt under my palm. “I’m lonely when nobody needs me.”

Trevor didn’t answer, instead fishing another noodle out for testing, then carrying the pot to the sink to strain it. As the steam roiled away from the colander, it wreathed his head in fog before he turned back to me with a small smile. “What if I stop needing you?”

I swallowed hard. I could feel something like panic spreading in my chest. I could feel my control slipping. “Then you’ll go,” I said with a shrug, trying so hard to pack away the strength of my reaction. Trying to stay calm and cool, the resting place, the waystation. Somewhere safe with no ties to bind him.

“And you’ll go back to being alone?” I shrugged at the question but couldn’t make myself meet his eyes. Trevor reached out and his hand cupped my chin, drawing my eyes up to his. “You should never be lonely.” And he kissed me.   



	11. Gehenna: Almost Over

“Seven days and six hours,” I sighed. Smoke still climbed toward the sky in a spiraling column. 

“Respectable,” Trevor answered as he stood beside me with his hands jammed deep into his pockets. “This sort of feels like one of those times when it’s time to call the doctor for an erection lasting more than four hours, though.” When I gave him a sidelong look, he grinned. “Not that I’d know or anything.”

I bumped my shoulder against his with a grin and walked around the pit to see it from a different angle. “The water helped with that one spot in the foliage, at least. It looks like it’s tunneling into the ground now, though.”

“How does it do that?” Trevor asked in bewilderment. “Dirt doesn’t burn, does it? Or whatever this orange shit is.”

“Good ol’ Virginia red clay.” I kicked at a tuft of scraggly winter-bitten grass and sighed. “No, it doesn’t burn, but we might have some interesting ceramic shapes by the end of this. The tunneling is from all the shitty shingles and broken two-by-fours. It all got layered in here years ago and we must have shaken something loose with the couches.”

“Be careful of getting in your way, is what you’re saying?” Trevor slipped his arms through the loops of mine so I didn’t have to take my hands out of my pockets and hugged me around the waist. “Want to get the hose again?”

I shook my head. “Nmm-mm,” I mumbled a negative. “The fire’s pretty well contained. It’ll burn out eventually.” I leaned my head back on his shoulder and Trevor turned his head to look at me. “It’s supposed to rain early next week anyway.”

“Whatever you say, boss,” he murmured in my ear and kissed my temple.


	12. Gehenna Sighs

The last wisps of smoke from Gehenna were easily carried up and away on the slight breeze. The trash pit itself was still smoldering and gasping, but no smoke wiggled out of the mostly blackened foliage surrounding it. “It’s still not dead,” Trevor sighed, staring at the pit from my back deck.

I smiled at him from where I was pouring my coffee. I had to work this morning and wanted to get moving early enough to spend some time alone in the office with my laptop before anyone else started bumping around and being too cheerful. “It’s getting there,” I told him and followed him out onto the porch. It was still cold enough to make us both shiver in the breeze, but the frost had already melted off at 7 AM. “Plans for today?”

“I was thinking about making cookies.” Trevor shrugged. “You’ve got a recipe, right?”

“In the little folder, left-hand side of the stove, second drawer,” I confirmed. “I think we’ve got everything for ginger cookies, but there’s no chocolate chips in the house right now.” I stood on my toes to kiss his cheek quickly. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you tonight.”

Trevor reached to catch me before I could step away, then kissed me soundly. “Looking forward to it,” he murmured with a grin.


	13. Christmas with Trevor: Part Six

I smiled to myself as my car bumped over the boundary between counties: one side paved and the other side crush-and-run, the cheapest paving option possible. I always felt like I was almost home at that county line, even if there was another ten minutes to drive before I reached my own driveway. I felt that much closer to home today: it was my last day of work before the two weeks I had taken to celebrate Christmas and New Years’. I wouldn’t have to walk back through those doors until the second of the new year. Two full fucking weeks to spend relaxing at home. With Trevor. 

He had slept with me last night. Not sexually. Just beside me in bed, his arms around me at first and then flopped wherever as he fell deeper into sleep. I had lain awake for almost an hour, listening to him breathe, then snore. I had tucked myself against his body and let one hand rest on his chest, measuring those breaths. 

I let out a long sigh, trying not to be overly pleased by his increased interest in sharing my bed. As much as I enjoyed having him near me, I knew there would be a point when Trevor was recovered, ready to stand on his own again. He wouldn’t need me, wouldn’t need my shelter or my care. He’d be ready to go and I would let him, open my hands and watch him leave with the heart of someone who has seen something wild restored. 

I would miss him. I knew that. 

Thinking like this made my hands itch, my chest ache. I signaled as I reached my driveway and parked the car under the big oak instead of close to the house. I needed the length of gravel to stretch my legs and settle my heart. 

He was waiting on the porch. I stared when I realized he was standing there, in pajama pants and a hockey sweatshirt, a cup of steaming coffee in one hand and a cookie the size of his spread fingers in the other. Waiting for me in spite of the bitter cold wind that was cutting right through my own jacket. 

When Trevor smiled at me, my bag fell from my fingers and I couldn’t keep myself from running. His expression changed from happiness to guarded worry and he set the mug and cookie on the railing to come down the steps and meet me with his arms out. I threw my arms around his neck and he hugged me tightly, lifting me free of the ground and then setting me on the bottom step to put us more level. “Baby, what’s wrong?” he asked me hurriedly. “What happened?” His hands cupped my face and his eyes darted, trying to find the answer and how to fix it.

“Hold me,” I begged and was ashamed to hear how broken my own voice was. Ashamed of the tears that were fighting their way down my face. “Please, Trevor.” His arms wrapped me in warmth and the smell of coffee and brown sugar. He held me tightly to his chest while I cried, unable to tell him what was wrong. Because nothing was wrong. And that was the problem. 


	14. Christmas with Trevor: Part Seven

I woke to find Trevor’s fingers tracing my cheek, brushing back a curl of my hair from my face. “You awake?” he whispered. I tilted my head to squint up at him, then smiled when he came closer. He knew I couldn’t see him without my glasses. “Feeling okay?” he murmured. I nodded a little, not trusting my voice yet. I had cried myself senseless and Trevor had wrapped me in blankets on the couch to sleep until the strength of the emotion had passed. “I need to borrow the car for a while,” Trevor said, still stroking my cheek with his fingertips. “You be okay until I get back?”

“How long?” I asked. I could hear the rustiness in my voice and winced, flinching away from it. I sounded needy, the me who had driven so many others away because nothing scared me more than being alone, being unneeded. Being unwanted. 

“Maybe a little more than an hour,” he said and leaned to kiss my forehead. “We need some stuff from Food Lion. Won’t take long.”

I frowned and Trevor stroked my eyebrow with his thumb to smooth it down. “We were just there; what didn’t we get?” 

“Ice cream,” he replied, “and pancake mix. And syrup. Frozen pizza.” I opened my mouth to protest and he kissed me quickly. “Shut up and give me a turn. I can do this.”

I swallowed hard, but nodded and tried to smile at him. “Okay.” He waited, his dark eyes still worried and serious as he watched me. I took a deep breath and pushed everything away from my mind, centered myself and smiled at him again. “Go ahead. I’ll be fine.”

Trevor smiled at me and leaned back in to kiss me. I tipped my head and welcomed him, curling one arm around his neck as he lingered in the kiss. When he broke the kiss gently, he whispered something I couldn’t quite hear. When I made an inquisitive sound, he shook his head and kissed my nose. “I’ll be back soon.”


	15. Trevor Goes Shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Told from Trevor's point of view after he has left the narrator asleep on her couch.

The old automatic door folded in and I squinted against the blast of heat as I walked into the antique store. It was time. I’d had my eye on something here for a long time now. I hoped it was still there.  

I nodded to the guy behind the counter. He nodded back, then adjusted his view of the security cameras. Fucking typical. Even in clean clothes, scrubbed and shaved and wearing a scarf my wife knit, this tiny fucking town would never be okay with someone like me around. 

My wife. I still couldn’t believe that part. Barbara fucking Gordon. She’d just sort of appeared in my life when I needed something to change. She’d married me out of purely practical reasoning. I would never understand how she could look at me, half-starved and full-crazy, hallucinating spiders under my skin and hearing my father’s voice telling me that killing myself would be too good for me, that living was punishment enough. She looked at me and saw something worth taking care of. 

We had shared space for eight months now. She gave me whatever space I needed. She held me when I couldn’t take any kind of space at all. She was unbelievably patient, just holding her arms out even when I called her everything foul I could think of. She never asked anything of me. Just that I didn’t make a mess of her home. 

I let my hand rest on the edge of the glass case and peered inside at the rows of odds and ends, coins and cased stamps, costume jewelry and worn pocket knives. And why I was here: rings. I reached into my jacket pocket and gripped the crumpled cash inside. When she’d been working in the city, I had asked our neighbors for work. I learned how to split wood and run a lawn tractor. I learned how to feed cattle. I’d been saving this for a long time. 

I let out a long breath when I saw it. A wedding set, silver and sapphires. Engagement, wedding band. A man’s ring in the same pattern. I closed my eyes hard and then straightened up. “Hey,” I called to the cashier. “Can I take a look at this?” I tapped the glass over the set. 

The cashier stared at me for a second, then said, “Most of that stuff’s real.” He made no move to bring his keys closer. 

“I would hope so,” I glowered at him, “considering what you’re asking. I’ve got cash.” When he still didn’t move, I felt something fiery and huge moving under my skin. I swallowed it back, then pulled my roll of cash out and began counting crumpled twenties and tens into the counter. When I reached the price I knew was on the set’s tag, I paused to meet his eyes, then started counting a second pile. Asshole surcharge. 

When I reached eighty in the second pile, he rose off his stool and ambled closer, eyeing the cash. “Where’d a guy like you get cash like that?”

I curled my lip at him. “Sold my crack pipe. You want to sell me something or what?” He held out his hands and waved them defensively before pulling his keys on their lanyard to the case’s lock. I’d said it to dig at him, but it was actually true in a sense: I had sold all of my stuff. Found someone in Dillwyn to take it off my hands without trying to sell me more or something different. I didn’t need it anymore, didn’t want to see it anymore. The spiders had been gone for months and there was a quiet place in my head I’d never seen before. 

The cashier set the wedding band and engagement ring out on the counter. “The men’s ring, too,” I requested and tapped the glass. Still skeptical, he pulled it out and set it beside the others. “Do you have a certificate on the stones?”

“On file,” he nodded, sounding impressed. I picked up the rings and rotated them, studying the twisted vines worked in silver. “It hasn’t sold because of no diamond. Nobody wants an engagement ring with no diamond.”

“She would,” I said softly, then slipped the men’s ring over my finger for the fit. It was a little loose, but I’d been gaining weight since going clean. If I kept it up, it would fit fine. It wasn’t just fat, either. Letting her feed me had made me feel better all over, so I’d been walking out in the fields more, even trying a little jogging. “You don’t have a box for this, do you?” I asked, tapping the engagement ring. 

The cashier paused and looked at me seriously for a long time. Long enough that I started to feel that flame rising in the edges of my vision again. “You live up at the old Hurricane, don’t you?” I nodded. “You gonna ask her to marry you?” There was disbelief in his voice and I gritted my teeth. 

“Don’t have to,” I replied tightly. I left the statement where it fell between us and he nodded once.

“There’s a box,” the cashier murmured and turned away. He turned back with two cushioned ring boxes. As he tucked the rings into them, he added quietly, “Five-forty for all three.” 

I glared at him. “So the two-twenty was just for the one ring, not the set?” At least he wasn’t jacking up the price on the men’s band. “I don’t have that much.” His eyes flicked to my face, then down again. 

“I don’t set the prices,” he muttered as he started to put the rings away again. “The sellers do that and I can’t negotiate. Sorry.”

I curled my hands into fists and stared at them for a second, feeling all the rage and violence that hadn’t been part of my life since I had first walked through her door, since the moment she had pulled me to her and kissed me. All I wanted was to make her feel safe. I wanted to jump the counter, bash this fucker’s face in. Take what I wanted and leave what it was worth: six months of retraining and working and saving, counting until I had enough and all the while hoping someone else hadn’t bought it first. I wanted to kill him. 

I closed my eyes and her face was there. Her calm smile and the way she tilted her head when she talked to me. The fear in her eyes when I had even mentioned leaving her alone again. The way she had thrown herself into my arms only a few hours ago, crying herself sick. Killing this fucker would mean I’d go to jail. I would have to leave her. All because I had wanted something for her. He wasn’t worth it.

“Can you set the men’s ring and the wedding band aside for me?” I had to force the words out of me. “I can put a deposit on them. I only need the engagement ring right now, but I want the others. Guaranteed sale.” I looked up at him and his face was a mask of shock. I injected steel into my spine, forced myself upright again and put my hands on the counter, fingers spread, conscious of the scars of dozens of broken jaws there. 

Slowly, the cashier looked down at my hands, then back up at my face. “Let me call the seller,” he said carefully. “He might be willing to negotiate, cut a deal for all three or hold ‘em. I can’t make that call, though. Only he can set that up.”

“Please.” I nodded shortly and stepped back from the counter, leaving my cash where it lay beside the rings in their boxes. The cashier turned away and started to look up the name of the seller, so I backed a little farther away and turned to look at the case across from the jewelry, full of mostly old baseball cards and a couple vintage fishing lures. I heard him talking quietly on the phone, then the phone tapped lightly on the counter. I turned back with my eyebrows raised. 

“He’ll take three hundred for two rings and hold whichever you want to come back for. Another one-fifty and you’ll have ‘em all.” He tilted his head. “Okay with you?”

“I can do that.” I felt tightness easing out of my chest and I came forward to sort out what I had. “I have three-eighty right now. Take the eighty against the hold?”

“Just pay in full when you pick it up. Easier to track.” The cashier held out his hand while I counted the bills into it, then waved his hands to the rings. “Which two?”


	16. Christmas with Trevor: Part Eight

I spit my toothpaste into the sink and rinsed the bristles under the stream of cold well water. I had slept for almost two hours after work, but I was still teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. Trevor’s pizza run had been extremely physically unhealthy, but it had been all the comfort foods we both loved: extra spicy pepperoni and extra cheese, Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food, graham crackers and peanut butter and chocolate frosting. We curled together on the couch and ate and watched movies on Netflix until we both started to nod off. 

As I turned off the faucet, I felt more than heard Trevor standing near me. I stopped and waited, then felt his hand slowly trailing down the back of my arm, fingers finding mine and interlacing. “Thank you for tonight,” I said, finding his face in the mirror above the sink. 

“I’m always game for stuffing myself with carbs and chocolate,” he smiled back, though his eyes avoided mine. “Do you want me to stay tonight?”

“If you want to, you know you’re always welcome.”

I blinked when Trevor turned me carefully to face him and ran his hands down my shoulders. “Babe, what do you want? Do you want me in bed tonight?” I stumbled over my answer and his gaze sharpened, a hound following a trail. “Don’t tell me it’s up to me. Tell me what you want.”

“I… I want you to be comfortable,” I managed to choke out and he sighed, his expression frustrated. “And…” I struggled to keep going and Trevor’s eyes brightened with returning hope. “And I think I’ve always wanted you next to me. I just didn’t want to push you before you were ready, if you’d ever be ready.”

Trevor pulled me close and kissed me, that same slightly hungry kiss he had given me in Food Lion earlier. I gasped when he hugged me tightly and I wrapped my arms around him, clinging as I returned the kiss. Something rushed through me and I remembered that first night in a flash of sensation. “I want you so bad,” he whispered against my lips and I tried not to be embarrassed by his words. “I want to be next to you, under you, inside you.” He paused to breathe unevenly against my neck. “I never want to leave.”

I tried to smile, tucking my face against his shoulder. I knew he didn’t mean it, that it was just the reawakening hunger now that he was getting used to his medication and being off the meth. His brain chemicals were finally settling down into something more normal. He didn’t really want me. He just wanted someone. So did I. It was part of the appeal: he wanted a warm body and I wanted to be wanted. Divorcing it from emotion made it so much easier when he did decide to go. “Then don’t,” I whispered. “Stay with me.”

He pulled me into his arms, hefted me far more easily than I would have thought him capable and carried me in the direction of the bed while I squeaked and wrapped my legs around his waist. When we tumbled down into the sheets and blankets, Trevor rolled close to me again, cradling my face in his hand. “Okay,” he whispered seriously. “I’ll stay as long as you want me to.” I blinked at him in surprise, but he smiled and stroked his thumb over my cheek. “I love you.”


	17. Christmas with Trevor: Part Nine

Sunlight crept across the kitchen floor, slowly lighting up every particle of dust in a halo of gold. It filtered through the glass of my terrarium, glinting on the leaves of the lemongrass and shimmering on the moss. It made the artificial tree’s lights look pale and dim, overwhelmed by the power of the original. It shown on my skin, each freckle and hair in sharp relief against the pale undertone. In morning sunshine, everything looked beautiful. I ran my hands up into my hair and fisted my fingers there, stifling a sob as I rocked on the floor of the kitchen. 

He loved me. 

Trevor loved me. He had kissed me for what felt like an eternity last night, made love to me. Made sure I felt safe and cared for. He fucking cherished me and all I could do now was grieve. I slipped up, misjudged the situation. I let him find me in the layers of careful emotional insulation. I wasn’t looking for love. I was looking for peace. 

“Hey, hey, wait a minute.” Trevor’s voice preceded his presence by only a few heartbeats and then he was sitting behind me, his arms around me and his face pressed against my shoulder. “No crying. No. What’s wrong? I couldn’t have been that bad, was I? I mean, I know I’m not packing much, but--”

“It’s not you,” I gasped, somewhere between laughing and crying. “I’m just… not ready for this. I’m not ready to feel like this. I’m not sure I can.” Trevor turned me in his arms until he could hold me with my head on his shoulder. “This was never supposed to happen.”

Trevor held me against him, stroking my hair and considering my words. “What wasn’t supposed to happen?” he whispered. 

“I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you.” I pressed my face into his shirt and clung to him. “You weren’t supposed to fall in love with me. Love wasn’t supposed to be part of this. I don’t want to be in love. I’m shitty at it. I feel too much and then it rips me apart when it’s over and it always ends. Always.” Trevor stroked my hair out of my face and I turned away from him, still clinging to his shirt. “I don’t want passion, Trevor. I want peace. I want evenings making pasta and watching Netflix. I want lazy Saturdays wandering the Downtown Mall. I want to be who I am and not have to worry about making someone happy. I want to be happy first and then have company in it. I could have all of that if I was alone, but…”

“You don’t want to be alone.” Trevor leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “Sweetheart, have you done this before? Brought someone broken home to fix them and not feel alone for a while?” I shook my head, succumbing to my tears. “You married me and expected there would never be any kind of attachment?” When I nodded, he laughed and hugged me tightly. “Am I really that unlovable?”

“No,” I croaked and pushed up to face him, my hands on his chest. I stared into his face in horror. The last thing I wanted was for this to backfire and hurt him. The last thing I wanted was for him to take away more self-loathing. “No, you’re not unlovable.” I reached to touch his face, watched while his eyes closed and he leaned into my palm. “Obviously,” I whispered, “since I love you.”

Trevor’s eyes flashed open in surprise mixed with wariness. He searched my face and I watched his eyes soften when he saw I wasn’t lying. “Really?” he asked. “Even with the little dick and the stinky breath and the blinding anger management issues?”

I found myself laughing and I kissed him. Admitting my feelings made me feel dizzy, light. I still wanted that quiet, that peace. But if I had to be in love, my heart knew I’d found the right person to be in love with. “As long as you keep brushing, your breath doesn’t stink.” 

Trevor sighed. “Really? No consolation prize in regards to the hardworking if small penis in the conversation?”

I grinned at him and he returned the smile. I curled my fingers into his collar and pulled him closer to kiss him again. “And your penis is exactly as big as it should be.” 


	18. Christmas with Trevor: Part Ten

I awoke to Trevor’s lips pressed gently to my forehead. He kissed down my nose until he found my mouth and curled his fingers up into my hair. “Good morning,” I murmured as I smiled into the kiss. 

“Wake up,” he whispered back and kissed my nose quickly, his eyes bright. “It’s Christmas.” When he was sure I was awake and staying there, he whooped and sprinted down the hallway toward the already lit tree in nothing but his briefs, arms over his head. “Christmas!”

I pulled out my phone to check the time and flopped backward to laugh helplessly. It was only four AM. I rolled out of the bed and pulled on flannel pajama pants, a tanktop and then shrugged into my fluffy black robe. “You couldn’t wait a few more hours?” I asked him when I padded down the hall to investigate coffee. To my delight, there was already a full pot of coffee and banana bread sliced on plates, butter set out to soften. “Aww. You made breakfast.”

“I did.” Trevor stood up and came to stand behind me, his arms around me and his cheek pressed to mine. “Didn’t even sever an artery cutting the bread.”

“Aren’t you freezing?” I asked him in amusement and kissed the back of his forearm. 

“I’ve got my love to keep me warm,” he sang, horribly off-key but enthusiastic. “And an entire pot of coffee. That’s the new one.” Trevor kissed me on the cheek and rushed back to the tree. “Hurry up, bitch, I want to open presents.”

I poured myself some coffee and buttered a slice of banana bread before joining him on the floor beside the tree. “So there’s some stuff from my mom that she said I don’t have to Skype her to open. I…” I stuttered to a halt and peeked at Trevor, suddenly feeling shy. “I got you some stuff. It’s nothing big, but just… y’know stuff to open that I thought you’d like.”

Trevor grinned and pulled me close to kiss me. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I got you something, too.” I blinked in surprise at him and he waggled his eyebrows at me. “Gotta wait until later, though.”

So we opened the small mountain of presents: coffee and chocolate from my mom, new socks for Trevor, a warm scarf from my mom, a book of poetry from my dad which prompted Trevor to ask me, “Don’t you hate poetry?” The BluRay of  _ Deadpool _ for Trevor. He slipped a few small packages under my hands when I reached for things and I found he had bought me sour gummy bears, a pair of stretchy gloves in a shade of purple I loved, and toothpaste. 

When the space under the tree was empty and the second pot of coffee depleted, Trevor flopped against the couch and pulled me into his arms. I smiled and snuggled against him and sighed, letting myself relax. “Merry Christmas, Trevor.”

“Not quite yet.” He kissed my cheek and I felt him shift until he was holding something in both hands, cupped in my lap. “First off,” he whispered, “before I give this to you, I want you to know it’s mine. Free and clear. I don’t owe anybody a favor for it, no loans, no bribes, no criminal activities at any point in the process.” Trevor leaned his cheek against mine and I was surprised to feel his hands shaking a little. “Okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered back. He nodded slightly, then moved his hands to let whatever he was hiding drop into mine. It was a small cube wrapped clumsily in blue and white snowflake paper. I turned to try to meet his eyes, but he ducked to keep his face against my neck. I studied the little box, then worked the paper open and froze in place. “Trevor…?”

“It’s mine to give,” he whispered. “Haven’t had much of that before. Or anyone to give it to. You don’t… have to wear it. But I’m giving it to you anyway.” 

The small jewelry box stared up at me from the opened paper. Now, it was my hands that were shaking badly and I had to open and close my fingers a few times before they still enough to pick it up. I opened the box, stared at the bright ring tucked into the cushioning. It was a sapphire, beautifully set in a tangle of silver vines that also bore up several tiny leaf-shaped emeralds. I tried to say something, tried to react, but all I could do was pull the ring from its nest and turn it in my fingers, stunned.

“Like I said,” Trevor said in a sudden rush of words. “You don’t have to wear it. I just wanted to give it to you. I thought you might like it and… and… well, we are married and all.” Before he could babble more, I slipped the ring onto my left-hand ring finger and turned quickly to kiss him, my hands holding his face and tears running down my cheeks. “So.. you like it?” he whispered hopefully when we surfaced from the kiss again. 

“It’s perfect,” I whispered back. 

“You’ll wear it?” 

I shifted onto my knees, studied his face between my hands, the frown lines that seemed less etched than when we first met, the grey in his hair and day-old scruff, the dark eyes that seemed flecked in gold from the morning sunshine. “I will,” I whispered. 

Trevor closed his eyes with a long sigh and hugged me closer to his chest before kissing me. “There’s a wedding band that matches,” he told me in a hushed tone, like he was afraid to speak louder, “and a men’s ring. I have the band already, but I didn’t have enough for the other one. I asked them to hold it for me until I could get enough money and they said they would.”

“How much do you need?” I asked him. 

“One fifty?” he said, then shook his head firmly, “but I’ll get it for myself. I want to.”

I snuggled into his chest and looked down at the ring where it sat on my hand. “How did you even find this?” I asked him helplessly. 

“Antique shop,” he smiled into my hair. “Next to the Food Lion. I’ve been poking around it for a few months now and spotted it.” Trevor paused to kiss my cheek and reached his hands around to hold mine, his thumb brushing over the brilliantly blue stone. “I chopped wood for the Manzanos down the road and the Mitchells next door. I helped Ms. Anne move the hay from her barn to where the cows could get it. She taught me how to work the tractor. Akreys needed someone to mow the back forty before we get more snow and I’m on call with them and Ms. Anne both to come back and shovel if the snow gets bad. I chased chickens for Minnie and took a few lessons from Earl Haden on shoeing horses, but I think that one’s beyond me.” I rested my cheek against his chest, stunned and silent as he continued his litany of farming chores. When he ran out of things to say, he fell silent with his chin resting on my head. “I really do love you, Batgirl. I wanted to work my ass off to show you how much.”

I closed my eyes and let a few more tears roll down, overwhelmed. “I don’t deser--”

“Don’t you dare,” Trevor interrupted me and tipped my chin up so he could kiss me. “Doesn’t fucking matter what you think you deserve. Hell, you deserve so much better than me. But I’m here and I love you and I’ll fight the rest of my life to make sure you know it. I’m just so fucking grateful someone better didn’t get here first. Just like the rings. I was so sure someone was gonna buy them out from under me. But they didn’t and I bought them and I’m here and I love you.” He scooped one arm under my knees and rotated me so my legs were over his and I could look directly at him without peering over my shoulder. “You’re already married to me. I already made all the vows and promises. Just… give me a chance to live up to them. That’s all I’m asking.”

“And my peace?” I whispered. I looked up at him in genuine worry: if he loved like this, was moved to gestures like this, what would that mean for the quiet I still hungered for? 

Trevor leaned his forehead against mine and smiled. “The last eight months have been the most peaceful of my life. Well, six months anyway. It was pretty rough at the beginning.” I chuckled and nodded. “I… like peace and quiet,” he sighed. “I like shopping with you for groceries, poking around in the fire pit with you, chopping wood for the neighbors and hearing you laugh when I say something stupid. I think your peace is what I’ve been missing for a long, long time. So, let’s be quiet together. I think I’d like that.”

I closed my eyes when he leaned to kiss me again, feeling something tight finally letting go in my chest. “I think I’d like that, too.”


	19. Gehenna Sleeps

We had coffee. We had banana bread. We had a small sea of shredded wrapping paper on the floor and scented candles burning beside the sink. And we had each other. Trevor even had pants. He was leaning against one arm of the couch while I reclined into his arms with my coffee cup balanced on my middle. He kept one arm around me while he sipped at his own mug. “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” he murmured and nosed against my cheek. “Gehenna’s out.”

I blinked and leaned to look back at him. “It’s a Christmas miracle!”

He grinned. “Yeah. I noticed this morning when I stuck my nose out to see if there were deer in the field.”

“At four AM?”

“More like three-thirty.”

“In your shorts.”

“I put your coat on,” he sniffed and held his nose up dismissively, “and boots. There weren’t any deer. When I didn’t see anything glowing or any smoke, I walked down to check.”

“In my coat, a pair of boots, and your shorts.”

“Yes, I froze my tail off.” Trevor hugged me tighter while I giggled at him. “Sassy bitch.”

“It’s why you like me.”

“It’s why I love you.” He kissed my cheek again. “Anyway, yeah, everything looks dead out there. I was starting to wonder if that thing was ever going to go out.”

“A friendly neighborhood fire hazard,” I agreed. Even after two cups of coffee, I was starting to drowse. I heard Trevor chuckle and he shifted his hips to wiggle deeper into the couch. I handed him my mug and he set it on the floor beside his own before pulling the big fleece blanket off the back of the couch and over us. “Read my mind,” I murmured and tried to smother a yawn. 

As we snuggled down under the blanket and into each other’s arms, Trevor paused to kiss me with his fingers lightly tracing my jaw. “Merry Christmas, Batgirl.”

I grinned at him and kissed him back. “You know you don’t have to call me that. You can actually use my name if you want.”

“Naw,” Trevor murmured. I could tell from his eyes that he was rapidly headed for the same nap I was chasing. “Barbara’s such a weird name. Do I call you Barb? Barbie? Barbarella? Babs?”

I snorted at him and shook my head, letting the issue go, then settled in with my head on his chest and his arms around me. “Merry Christmas, Trevor.”


	20. Looking Back - Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trevor and Batgirl reminisce about when they met.

_ Batgirl _

A low, extended whistle reached me from where I sat at the circulation desk and I looked up in surprise that gave way to excitement. It had been a quiet day at the library and activity of any kind was more than welcome. It was even MORE welcome when it came attached to my husband. I flapped my hand at him scoldingly and shushed him. “No whistling in the library,” I hissed playfully. “The manager will gripe.”

Trevor grinned at me and held out his arms. He was wearing one of the hooded sweatshirts I had bought him for Valentine’s Day and he looked warm and snug against the wild winds that had been blowing through for the last week. I burrowed into his embrace and felt him sigh and relax again once his chin was resting on top of my head. “Thought I’d give the new place a look. Can you point me at the stairwell?”

I snorted at him and gave his chest a little push. “Actually, there are no inside stairs. Just the long brick ones outside and the elevator.” He just grinned and hugged me back to his chest. “You’ll have to cook your meth at my desk. I don’t recommend it.”

He kissed the top of my head and let me go. “I think I’ll give it a miss. That stuff’ll kill ya, you know.” Trevor grinned and started wandering through the adult stacks, browsing the new books and through the YA. “Far cry from the last place. Much quieter.”

“I know.” I returned to the desk and leaned on it. It was a Wednesday night and my coworker at the children’s desk looked at me quizzically. “My husband,” I explained. “Trevor.”

As she was nodding, Trevor called back, “What about me?”

“Identity,” I replied, “and don’t shout in the library.”

“We’re the only ones here!”

“It’s the principle,” I said and grinned.

“Technically,” the children’s librarian said, “we’re open and we have a patron.”

“I’m not a patron,” Trevor retorted. “I’m family.”

I sighed and walked over to where he was standing in the YA stacks. “Come over here, you geek.” He spun me into another hug and I giggled. We stood like that for a few seconds, just leaning into each other and enjoying the reunion of having been apart for all of eight hours. 

“I missed you,” Trevor whispered in my ear and I smiled. His fingers traced my face as if it had been months since he had seen me and then he kissed me, deeply and tenderly. 

“Are you two smooching in the stacks?” my coworker called and I started to giggle again. 

“You seriously couldn’t wait two more hours?” I asked him in amusement as I half-dragged him back up to the circulation desk.

Trevor leaned on the patron side of the desk and shrugged. “Honestly, I did want to see the new place. Have you finished planning for the zombie apocalypse yet?” The children’s librarian choked on her tea and I grinned.

“Not yet. I haven’t been here long enough to explore all the nooks and crannies. I mean, it’s a solid brick building but the cell and radio reception inside is shit. The most secure areas are also the deepest and would be hard to set up an SOS call from.”

“Is that what you’re doing when you stare off into space over there?” my coworker cried.

“Sometimes,” I grinned at her, “and sometimes I’m just napping. It’s when I wander around the building looking out windows and looking at doors and hinges that you should be worried.”

We chatted for a while before words ran out and we rested quietly in the empty library, Trevor’s fingers on the back of my hand and the children’s librarian checking books for weeding. “How did you guys meet?” she asked.

Trevor and I exchanged amused looks. “Do you want her to know?” Trevor asked me in an undertone.

“My husband is tattooed and still manages to look half-crazy even when he’s on meds, well fed and in comfortable clothes.” I curled my fingers around his and grinned. “Sure. Why not.”

“She caught me cooking meth at the library,” Trevor said and we watched the children’s librarian’s eyes widen. 

 

\----

 

The lights had already finished their ten-minutes-to-closing flash and the staff were all hustling around, clearing out the last lingering patrons inside the building. My portion of the end-of-day routine included locking the meeting room doors, setting the automatic doors to one-way, and checking the various odd places to make sure no patrons were hiding out. Usually, there was nothing odd when I was closing up, but this particular Saturday was different.

I could smell something before I even reached the door to the emergency stairwell. Rotten eggs, cat piss, ammonia. I shook my head sharply and pushed the door open, leaning to look down the industrial stairs. “Hello? Library staff. We’re closing now.” Almost immediately, something shattered and I heard a male voice curse. The smell got stronger, so I slipped a door stop under the emergency exit door so I wouldn’t get locked out again, then came forward a little more. “Hello?”

“Hello your own fucking self, Batgirl.” The man at the bottom of the stairs was pointing a pistol at my face and I froze, letting my hands turn palm up in surrender. His dark eyes searched for any sign of movement and I could feel the blood draining out of my face. “Now, what you’re gonna wanna do right now is turn right back around and go back to all your little bookworms in there and forget you ever saw me. Go on. I don’t like shooting women, but I will if I have to.”

“We’re closing,” I found myself telling him. “I can’t leave you in here. I could lose my job.”

“Job or your life, honey,” he snorted back.

His eyes were hard, but his hand was shaking a little. He would kill me if he had to, but he wouldn’t enjoy it and he seemed like a man used to killing, even enjoying it. My instincts screamed to turn tail and run, but the face staring up at me spoke to something small and quiet in my chest. I smiled at him, which obviously surprised him and his eyebrows shot upwards in twin arches. “When you really think about it,” I said as I leaned forward onto the railing above him, “it doesn’t much matter either way. I lose my job, I lose my life. Can’t pay bills, can’t eat. The options don’t matter much to you, since you’ll still be leaving. It’s not like you can stay after you’ve shot the circ staff in the stairwell. They tend to frown on that.”

The man stared at me for a long time, the barrel of the pistol barely twitching until he finally dropped it and stuffed the weapon into the waistband of his pants. “Well, shit. You don’t scare easy AND you’re as fucking suicidal as I am. Color me impressed, Barbara.” He paused with his hands on his hips, then looked down at the broken glass on the floor. “Fucked up this dose anyway. Guess I’ll get out of here.”

“There are easier ways to get a fix,” I commented as he turned toward the emergency exit. “I mean, anything’s better than trying to cook one dose of meth in the library stairwell, right?”

He stopped to look up at me again, his expression puzzled. “You really are fucking Batgirl, aren’t you?”

“I wish,” I chuckled. “Have you seen the tits on Yvonne Craig? Damn, it’s a shame she’s dead. I’d probably still do her.”

My stairwell cook stared at me with his jaw hanging open before he started to laugh. “Fuck me, I like you! They teach that kind of language in library school?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I shot back and grinned at him, leaning on the railing. “I never went. I just work here.”

“Pay any good?” 

“It sucks ass.”

His grin widened. “Come work for me, then. I could always use a caped crusader in my back pocket.” His eyes dipped lower to the modest v-neck of my shirt and his lips curled. “Or in my pants.”

“Selling yourself pretty hard there, champ,” I chuckled. “Hold a gun on a girl, then ask her to hop your dick?” I heard movement in the hall behind me and I turned to look. “I’m willing to negotiate salary and benefits later, but right now you need to move so I can pretend like there was nobody down here, alright?”

“Do I get a name and a number?” he asked hopefully and I grinned.

“Somehow, I think I’m better off not giving you my number. You can keep calling me Batgirl, if you want.” 

He gave me a sulky glare, then huffed and turned toward the exit. “Fine, blow me off, bitch.”

His words stung and I was surprised that I cared. There was something more to this, to him and I needed to explore what it was. “Stick around after hours and I’ll make it worth your wait,” I said and he blinked. I had surprised him again. I gave him a lopsided smile, then nodded at the door. “Outside, handsome.” Reluctantly, he nodded, then slowly smiled at me, a rusty expression like he hadn’t done it in a while. Not for real. He slipped out through the door and I watched as he circled around to the side of the building. Shaking my head, I returned to my coworkers and wondered what I was getting myself into.


	21. Reminiscing: Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trevor's point of view on his first meeting with Batgirl.

_ Trevor _

I don’t know why I stayed. Batgirl or not, she was still a straight-up citizen. Too good for the likes of me unless there was several bottles of beer and a shot of heroin involved. But damn if she didn’t smile at me. Damn if her sense of humor wasn’t as fucked up as mine. Damn me for a fool, but she wasn’t afraid of me. She should be. Even I’m afraid of me. I watched from the concrete steps as all the librarians streamed out in a gaggle of cardigans and clogs, headed for their cars on the far side of the parking lot. Batgirl was with them, but her eyes cut to the side. Was she seriously looking for me? Girl was crazier than me. One by one, the cars drifted away and toward the street, but a little red Kia stayed parked with its brake lights on. Once the parking lot was cleared, the car shut off again and she got back out to amble across the asphalt toward where I was hiding.

I came out to study her. She wasn’t very tall and she looked soft all over, even her pale, freckled skin. The only exception was her eyes. Her eyes looked like she saw something funny happening and you really didn’t want to know what it was. Blue eyes behind thick-framed glasses that seemed to scream, _ this chick fucking hates you _ . She had her dark ginger hair up in a bun… at least, I thought it was a bun at first, but when she got closer, I saw that it was just a high ponytail that curled over on itself, her hair too short and curly to sweep like a ponytail usually did. She was still wearing her ID lanyard and I glanced down at it quickly, surprised to notice she hadn’t bothered to cover her name. “Your name is showing.”

“Damn, you’ve figured out my secret identity,” she said. Her voice was lower than I expected from a woman, both naturally and it seemed like she pitched it lower on purpose. Almost a growl sometimes. It was sexy as hell. “You can call me Barbara, just not in front of normal people.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “Sticking with it, huh?”

“You started it.” She stood with her hands on her hips, which both drew my eye down to her hips--plump and curvy and they looked like they’d be fun to hold onto while I fucked her--and framed her chest, which was just as plump and curvy. Damn, I was already getting hard. “Eyes up, buttercup.”

I brought my eyes back to her face, expecting a reprimand or at least a blush, but she was smiling and seemed completely comfortable with the weird addict checking out her rack. “Why the fuck are you still talking to me?” I blurted, unable to hide the curiosity anymore.

“Can’t a girl like the smell of cat piss on a guy?” Her eyes were alight with laughter, something gentler than before and I swallowed hard. “To be honest, it’s your voice.”

“My voice?” I heard the accent slip out, harder than usual and grating in my ears. I hated my voice, that last fucking link to nowhere. But she closed her eyes and swayed when I spoke, her expression relieved. “You’ve got some weird kinks, girl.”

“Sounds like home,” she said quietly and I blinked. After an awkward silence, she opened her eyes again and added, “I’m from way up north near the Canadian border. Cheeseheads and Yoopers are like a delicacy down here.”

I saw red. Red and white flags flapping in the edges of my vision. I wanted to shoot her right there. Fucking Canada. Never left me the fuck alone. “I’m not fucking Canadian.”

She blinked and widened her eyes, genuinely surprised. “I know. Your accent’s state-side. I can hear the difference. I’m not, either, but everyone down here thinks I am. No nuance. They can hear the difference between an Appalachian mumble and a Texas drawl and a Georgia lady’s softer  _ y’all _ , but they can’t tell shit from anyone farther North.”

It was like someone had turned off the light show in my peripheral vision and all I could see was her. Batgirl. Barbara fucking Gordon. I rushed her and kissed her and she flailed for a minute, squeaking in surprise before her hands settled on my arms and she relaxed again. Damn me for a fool if she didn’t kiss me back. I couldn’t believe she was kissing me back. I’d expected a punch, maybe a knee in the crotch, but here she was. Kissing me. She smelled like lavender and sage and vanilla and her skin under my hands was just as soft as it seemed like it’d be.

When I let her up for air, she blinked at me and smiled, then whispered, “As nice as that was, you really need a bath.” I could feel something crawling on my cheeks and wondered if I was blushing. It had been a long time since I did that. “So, what do I call you?”

“Trevor,” I said, feeling almost like I was floating a little. Everything about this girl was surreal. “Trevor Phillips.”

She stepped back but didn’t take her hands from my arms. “It’s nice to meet you, Trevor. Even if you were cooking illegal substances in my place of business and pointing a gun at me.” I wanted to step closer to her, but recognized the almost playfully embarrassed look on her face. She wasn’t kidding about how I smelled. I’d stopped noticing a long time ago. I wondered if she’d let me kiss her again if I took a bath, then wondered when I started caring about what some chick thought. But I knew I really did want to kiss her again and I didn’t think she’d stand for another stolen one. “Do you need a place to stay? I know you’re not from around here, so I figured you’re just passing through.”

I stared at her, still not sure how to take any of this. “You’d let me stay? Fuck, girl, you don’t know me from Adam.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure I’d know Adam on sight. Little guy, brown as a nut and really confused by all the cars.”

I couldn’t have kept the laugh inside if I’d wanted to. She grinned impishly at me when I laughed and that grin warmed me right up inside. “Okay, fine. You want to risk your neck with the weirdo from the library, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I followed her to her car, then twitched when she pulled a duffel bag out and threw it at me. “I’m wondering how much of the smell is your clothes,” she commented casually. “There’s a change in there that might be a little tight but will get you home.”

“First off,” I said as I threw the bag down beside the car, “my clothes are paramount to the look. I’m not gonna pull off unhinged meth addict in…” I looked down and pulled out the clothes from her duffle. “Victoria Secret running pants and a giant t-shirt. What the fuck, girl?”

Her sunny smile made me pause. “I wanna see that ass in spandex before it gets in my car, Trevor.”

I stared, then looked down at the pants again. “What the hell,” I muttered in surrender. “I’ve worn weirder. Voluntarily.” I started to drop trow, then stopped to look up. Batgirl was watching me with her chin propped in one hand. “You mind?”

“Nope,” she grinned. 

“I’m feeling very violated here,” I growled. 

“You’re the one who was cooking meth in public.”

“My addiction doesn’t give you permission to publicly humiliate me.” I stabbed a finger at her.

She paused, then closed her eyes and nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” She turned around and leaned against the car again. “You’re really articulate for a meth addict.”

“You’re really vulgar for a librarian,” I snapped back. I dropped my pants into the duffle bag and considered before stripping out of shorts, too and wiggling awkwardly into the tight-fitting pants. They were actually pretty comfortable and I nodded before pulling off my shirt and replacing it with the white XXL from her bag. “What’s an Ack-ack?”

“ACAC,” she giggled, turned around again. “Atlantic Coast Athletic Club. They spotted me a shirt when I forgot mine once. And I’m not a librarian.”

“Looks like a fucking duck,” I snorted.

“But didn’t get the fucking duck’s degree,” she responded quickly. “I’m just staff. Nothing special about me.” She walked around the car and collected the duffle before stuffing it into the trunk of the car. I reached for the door, then paused when she said, “One more test?”

“What now?” I asked in exasperation, then shut up when she slipped her arms around my neck and kissed me again. I felt a little groan slip out as I wrapped my arms around her and she leaned against me. She felt so damn good. It had been a long ass time since a woman actually kissed me. Or reached for me. In a heartbeat, I went from annoyed to aching and she broke the kiss slowly, running one hand along the side of my neck. She fucking lingered and I wanted her with everything I had. I started to whisper her name, but she stopped me, fingers over my lips.

“Barbara,” she whispered. “Or Batgirl. That name belongs to someone else. Someone professional.”

“Someone who’d never think about picking up a junkie in a stairwell?” I teased her and she smiled at me. “So, what’s the verdict, your honor?”

“About 60% better,” she grinned and fisted her hand in the front of the shirt to pull me down for another kiss. “Still need that bath, though.”

“You can bathe the junkie but it doesn’t clean him up.”

Her smile was gentle then and she stood on her toes, slowly kissing me. “I know,” she whispered. “I’m not asking for that. Just a bath.”

I stared at her. She was serious. “You don’t know where I’ve been.”

“No,” she murmured, “I don’t. And I don’t care. I still want you to come home with me. There’s a spare room; you don’t even have to sleep with me if you don’t want to. As long as you don’t blow up a mini-meth lab, set anything on fire, kill me, or make me an accessory to murder, I think I’ll be okay.”

“All that because you’ve got a weird thing about guys who say aboot.”

She giggled and kissed me again. “Your ass is also fantastic in spandex, cutie. Let’s go.”


	22. Reminiscing: Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Batgirl takes Trevor home. Warning for nudity and community bathing.

_ Batgirl _

I drove out of town with the windows down and Trevor half-hanging out of the passenger side window, his chin resting on his forearm as he watched the streets roll by and drift into sparser houses and bigger fields. He was right: someone with my name never would think to pick up an addict in the library stairwell. She would never bring him home with the intention of bathing him, feeding him, and fucking him senseless. For that matter, she was pretty well removed from that activity. 

But he was cute and he’d agreed to change and bathe and he made me laugh. Oddly, that seemed like enough for now. I liked the idea of someone being in my house other than me. I glanced at the back of Trevor’s head and wondered how long he would stay. “Do you always drive like my grandma?” Trevor asked, his voice mostly whipped away by the wind outside.

“I’ll bet your grandma drove like a madwoman, didn’t she?”

“She was a beautiful and dignified lady, I’ll have you know.”

“Who drove like a madwoman.”

“Who drove like a madwoman.” He turned in the seat to face me, leaning his back against the door with his arms crossed over his chest and his head partially tilted back so he was still getting the air on his face. “I really don’t get you.”

I smiled and glanced at him. “I’m an open book.”

“Ha ha,” he snorted. “Librarian. Book. I get it. But seriously, what’s wrong with you? Look at me. I’m a mess.” He waved his hands towards himself. “I’m dressed in women’s workout clothes and I smell like cat piss.” Trevor paused and looked down at his lap, his expression thoughtful. “I really do, don’t I?”

I drove without answering for a while, thinking about the question. I thought about weekends where I stayed home until I couldn’t stand it and came out to the nearest town just to hear other people breathing. I didn’t prefer the company of people or the social interaction, but just having something other than myself moving was comforting. “I’m lonely,” I said quietly.

Trevor was silent. He shifted in his seat. He looked out the window. “Low blow, Batgirl,” he muttered in a growling voice. When I didn’t say anything, he turned to look at me again. “That’s the best you’ve got?”

“I am,” I murmured. I signaled and followed the road as it took a weaving series of curves past several intersecting roads. When I didn’t need to focus quite as much on steering, I looked at Trevor again and asked, “What? How is that a low blow?”

He sat with his arms crossed over his chest, staring out the window with a sullen look on his face. After a second more of silence, his eyes slid to meet mine, then returned to the middle distance. “That’s my line.”

“You’re the only one allowed to be lonely?” I asked softly. Trevor exhaled sharply through his nose, not quite a snort. I reached over to rest my hand on his thigh and he twitched away from my touch. “Come home with me,” I whispered. “I promise you, nothing weird.”

“What if I like weird?”

“Then nothing unexpectedly weird.” His dark eyes were still wary when he met my gaze again, but he smiled a little and nodded. 

“I’ve come this far,” he said and shrugged.

We crossed the county line. I pulled up to my front door along the uneven gravel driveway. We got out of the car and I grabbed the duffle bag with his clothes from the trunk before approaching the front porch and reaching to unlock the door. I shouldered my way inside and pointed out the amenities to Trevor. “Kitchen. Living room. Dining table that I use more for a desk than anything else. Bedroom around the corner. Laundry’s in the basement. Spare bedrooms are on either side of the hall and mine is at the end. There’s only a bed in the blue one, though. On the right. Make yourself at home.”

“Careful what you wish for.” I smiled as he poked through the living room to look at my video games and DVDs. I took the duffle bag down to the laundry room and dumped his clothes in with some bleach and detergent before returning. Trevor was reading the back of a DVD case and looked up when I walked in. “You actually paid money for this shit?”

“Modern classic,” I replied, snatching the DVD away. “Vin Diesel is a god. Besides, it was in the bargain bin at the dollar store.”

“Three strikes really does not get that glamorous.”

“I like a good explosion and tit flick, okay? Don’t judge me.” I put the DVD back on the shelf and went into the bathroom to start the tub.

“How are you straight?” he asked me incredulously as he followed me. I dropped two tablets of bath oils into the tub as the water started to fill. “You’re as crazy for tits as I am and that’s pretty damn hard.”

“I’m bi,” I chuckled and turned to face him. “Attractive is attractive and parts are just parts.”

The air in the bathroom started to steam as the tub filled with fragrant water and Trevor regarded me thoughtfully for a moment. “Smells like weed in here,” he finally said.

“It does not,” I retorted with a grin. “It smells like cloves and patchouli. I can understand the confusion, though.” I stuck my hand in the water, then adjusted the temperature. “So, are you getting in or what?”

“So I can smell like a fucking weed-smoking hippy?” I turned back to look at him and he had a sullen look on his face again. “Hell no.” I gave him a slow smirk and his eyes widened. “U-unless you’re talking about something else…”

I stood up and walked over to him, standing close enough so he could reach out and touch me if he wanted to. “If you want help, I’m more than happy to scrub your back.”

His eyes softened and he smiled, reached up to brush a loose curl of my hair back from my cheek. “What if I want help scrubbing my front?”

“We can negotiate,” I grinned back and took another step closer, tipping my head back so he could lean down to kiss me. He stroked my cheek and pressed his lips to mine, kissing me more slowly than he had before, taking his time and pulling me closer. When I felt his erection through the gym pants, I grinned into the kiss and added, “You’d better not rip those. I still like those pants.”

“I can see why,” he growled back and slid one hand around my lower back, pulling me closer. “Lightweight, flexible, snug.” I gasped a little when he hiked me against him with a grin. “Leaves very little to the imagination.”

“Tub,” I reminded him and he chuckled.

“Fine, come scrub my back.” He paused to kiss me again, then let me go and stepped to the side to strip out of t-shirt and pants. I tried not to stare as he climbed into the tub; he was stunningly well built with well-defined muscles across shoulders, back, buttocks, thighs. When he glanced over his shoulder at me, his expression was amused. “Are you coming or just going to stare at my ass all day?”

“I can do both.”

“Not if I’m gonna sit on it.” 

“Point taken.” I chewed my lip as Trevor wiggled his way into the hot water, his face scrunched up in a scowl. I peeled off my work clothes and tossed them into the hallway with my socks, but paused before taking off my panties and bra. Trevor was watching me, his eyes wide and expression still surprised. “What?” I asked, feeling a blush spreading across my face and down my chest. 

He curled a finger at me and I came back into the bathroom to stand beside the tub. After a moment, he reached and his thumb brushed over the small, horizontal scar just below my breasts. I looked away from him, suddenly regretting whatever madness had possessed me to bring this stranger into my home. But his touch was light, gentle and his hand moved down to trace the two other marks on the side of my belly, the one in my navel. “What…? I don’t even know what could do that.”

“Gallbladder removal,” I chuckled softly. “So exotic.”

Trevor looked up into my face, surprised. “Isn’t that an old people’s thing? You’re what, maybe thirty?”

I smiled. “Flatterer.”

“No, I’m serious. You’re still a fucking baby for that kind of thing.” He stood up in the tub again and reached to touch my face. “What happened?”

I shook my head and gave him a little push to sit. “Sit down and don’t look for a minute, okay? You’re making me shy.” He paused, then nodded and sat back down into the water, hugging his knees while he waited. I unhooked my bra and slipped out of my panties, tossed them into the hall, then stepped into the water behind him. Trevor peeked at me over his shoulder, then scooted down in the tub so I had more room. As I settled into the hot water, I grabbed a bar of soap and a washcloth, getting both wet before starting to scrub across his shoulders. He dropped his head forward with a sigh and I smiled to myself. 

“Feels good,” he whispered without lifting his head. 

“I’m glad,” I said. I worked my thumbs into the tense muscles of his shoulders a little, then worked farther down his back, rinsing the washcloth to wipe away the soap occasionally. Inch by inch, he started to relax and sighed, his breathing starting to even out. I traced the tattoo on his shoulder. “Who’s Michael?” His shoulders tensed again and I laid my palm against his skin. “Sorry. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk.” 

“My best friend,” he replied in a low voice. “Fucker got himself killed. Only family I felt like I ever had and then he went and died on me.” I rubbed the soapy washcloth down his back and watched as the bound muscles released again. 

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I worked the soap across the back of his neck, then around the sides, down his chest a little. He shivered and I gently pulled him toward me until his back was against my chest and he leaned back, my arms around his shoulders. I shifted my legs to either side of his hips and leaned back against the back of the tub, holding him. 

“I don’t understand any of this,” he whispered back, letting his head rest back against my shoulder. The tub was too short even for me to stretch out, so Trevor's knees were a little comical, poking up out of the water. I smiled and shifted my cheek to rest against the side of his face. “Why am I here? Why are you here?”

I leaned and kissed his cheek then along his jawline, stroking my hand over his hair. “Because we’re lonely,” I whispered in his ear and felt him shiver, “and we’re trying to find a way to not be.” He didn’t move for a long time and I kept my face gently pressed against his neck. “You ask a lot of questions,” I added softly, “for someone who’s getting bed and board and company for free.”

“Just doesn’t make sense,” he mumbled and sunk deeper into the water. 

“Do you want to soak?” I asked and he glanced at me upside-down before nodding. “If you want more hot water, the faucet is backward. Hot water’s on the right.” I slipped out from behind him and climbed out of the tub to towel myself off. “I’ll start some coffee... unless you’d rather have tea?”

“Coffee,” said Trevor. He had slipped down a little more in the tub until his ears were almost covered with water and just his nose and mouth were visible. Well, and his eyebrows, which looked like surfing caterpillars. “I’ll take my buzz where I can get it.” I grinned, turned down the lights to half of the vanity bulbs and left him half-floating, half-sinking in my tub.


	23. Reminiscing: Chapter Four

_ Trevor _

I lay there for a long time, just listening to the sounds of her house as amplified and distorted by the water in my ears. I listened to the pipes as she ran water, her footsteps as she moved. She was stunningly light on her feet; I could barely hear her at all. I could feel the water getting colder, so I reached up with my toes to turn the right faucet, running it until it was warm, then scalding and letting out water at the same rate. I held my breath and submerged. 

Lonely didn’t even scratch the surface. The physical contact I had had with her since I met her had been the most nonsexual contact I’d had since Mike died. Even now, suspended in her tub, I could feel my skin aching for her touch again. It wasn’t sexual. I mean, yes, it was but it wasn’t just sexual. She touched me with purpose and kindness and acceptance. I wanted it back. 

But it wasn't just my loneliness that made me want to stay. It was hers. Those sunken, purplish scars on her belly still haunted me. She was shy of them, even when she was dismissing them and I wanted to know what kind of thing could happen to make her need to have something removed like that. I knew you took out tonsils and appendixes... append... appen... more than one appendix and that you could survive without your gallbladder, but I'd never heard of someone having theirs out. She had so clearly had a soft life that any kind of scars seemed utterly out of place on her smooth skin.

When I surfaced again and blew water off my lips and out of my nose, she was standing in the doorway, still naked and wrapped in her towel and holding two mugs of coffee that smelled incredible. She extended one to me and when I took it, she playfully kicked me over to the other side of the tub so she could get in again, dropping her towel on the closed toilet seat. Sitting hip to hip and facing the door, it was a tight squeeze for us, but her shorter legs seemed perfectly comfortable folded up like a frog under her. 

“Soak enough or you need more?” she asked as she sipped her coffee.

I shrugged and tried it, then did a double take and tried it again. It was heavenly, dark and smooth with a little bit of hazelnut creamer taking the bitter edge off just enough. There was cinnamon in the flavors, too. “Holy shit, this is good!”

“Oughta be,” she grinned. “Fresh ground it this morning from the best local beanery.”

“Flavored?” I asked and she shook her head.

“Just the creamer.”

I sighed and took another long sip, enjoying it. “Well, it’s awesome. Thank you. It’s been a long fucking time since I had coffee that didn’t taste like it was made with a dirty sock and then burned.”

“Life’s too short to drink shitty coffee,” she said seriously. 

“When there’s coffee like this in the world, I totally agree.”

We lapsed into silence as we drank our coffee in the tub. I was surprised by how comforting the silence was. It felt like I’d been comfortable like this with her forever. I was barely comfortable in my own skin, so that idea was really confusing at first.

Finally, I looked down at my hands and chuckled. “I look like a bleached raisin.”

She chuckled and leaned her head on my shoulder. “Ready to finish up and get out?”

“I think so.”

We set aside our mugs--mine empty and hers with a quarter inch of milky liquid at the bottom--and I watched her in silence as she soaked the washcloth, rubbed it full of soap again, then began to wash my chest. Her touch was incredible, firm and gentle. The smell of soap and the bath oils she had added filled my nose, but not so much so that I couldn’t still smell the faint scent of her skin, her hair. Her hands came up to my neck and I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, let her wash my neck, my jaw, my face. “Hold your breath,” she whispered and I did while she cupped water in her hands and rinsed the soap from my face. Her thumbs wiped my eyes clear and I opened them again to look at her. She smiled. 

I reached out and brushed a smudge of muddy dirt from her face, feeling my face flush. “I got you dirty.” At the thought, I looked at the water and felt a wash of shame; the water was dingy, even with my refresh of hot water. “God. I’m a fucking mess.”

“Not anymore,” she whispered and I blinked when she guided my face to hers and kissed me again. “Sometimes getting clean means getting clean things a little dirty.” Before I could reply, she stood up and pulled me to my feet, then poked the drain with her toe so the water began to swirl and gurgle away, leaving a grimy ring at our feet. “Pull the curtain and we’ll get a shower.”

“Shower after the bath to get the bath off?” I chuckled and she beamed at me. That smile hit me hard in the chest. I reached to pull the shower curtain closed and she started the faucet to warm it before triggering the shower lever. A fast flash of icy water hit my skin and I gasped, then grinned when she stood up between me and the water until it ran warm again. “I really don’t want to hurt you,” I whispered, stroking her face as she leaned her cheek into my hand. “I’m not a safe person, Batgirl. I scare myself, the shit that goes through my head. And then the shit I do without even getting to think about it. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s okay if you do,” she murmured. I tried to say something, but she leaned back to let the shower spray run over her hair and face, taking away the last of the dingy bathwater. She reached up and worked her fingers through her hair, letting out a contented sound as she did. My hands slipped over her hips and she smiled, letting me draw her close again. 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I repeated and she looked up at me, blinking away the water. 

That beautifully insane girl shrugged and smiled, then reached for the shampoo. She lathered her hair and I watched her, feeling an ache in my chest that just wouldn’t go away. She wasn’t afraid of me. She should be. I wondered if I should scare her, just to make the point when I could still control myself. She rinsed out the shampoo, then reached for conditioner and maneuvered herself around me so I was under the spray with a little nod toward the shampoo bottle. 

“I don’t belong here,” I said, feeling an urgency to make her understand. I squirted a handful of shampoo into my palm when she raised her eyebrows and I sighed, rubbing it into my hair. “Goddammit, Barbara, I don’t belong anywhere near you. I’m a fucking monster, a murderer and a junkie who’s never done a good thing in his life.”

When I paused, she gently pushed my head back into the water and I let her rinse out the shampoo before I looked at her again. “Everyone deserves to be clean,” she smiled softly and stood on her toes to kiss my lips. 


	24. Reminiscing: Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agreements are made; Warning for mild smut.

_ Batgirl _

My words seemed to chase Trevor’s away and he went through the process of soaping up and rinsing off without saying anything more. I knew he was worried and maybe he was right to be. Self-destructive tendencies seemed to recognize their own, though I mostly had mine under control now. We got out of the shower and I handed him a towel, then pulled my own around myself to dry off. 

I meant what I had said to him. I really did believe everyone deserved to be clean, regardless of what they might have done in the past or might do in the future. Being clean, at least for one moment, was worth the hassle. I started to leave the bathroom, but Trevor reached out and dragged me back against his chest, hugging me close. “You’re beautiful, you know,” he whispered in my ear. 

I reached back to pat his cheek with my palm and smiled, tried not to laugh at his words. “You’re sweet to say it. Thank you.” His arms tightened around me and I felt his breath stutter, almost like he was going to cry. I gently worked my way out of his arms and turned to smile up into his face. “Thank you.” He opened his mouth to say something, but I walked into the hallway, tucking the edge of my towel into itself so it wouldn’t fall down. Trevor followed me, trailing behind me like a worried puppy. I went down into the chilly basement, moved his wet clothes from the washer to the dryer and set the timer. 

When I turned around, Trevor came forward in a rush and caught my face in his hands, kissing me hard and driving me back against the dryer for a moment. “Stop dismissing me,” he growled. “Stop ignoring what I’m saying to you. I might be a sack of shit, but I’m not a lying sack of shit.” His hands slowly traced my cheeks, my jaw, and settled around my neck, his thumbs stroking my throat. Without meaning to, I let my eyes roll and tipped my head back, surrendering to that touch. His growl came again, louder, frustrated and he pushed his hands up into my hair behind my head, lifting me so I would look at him. “I’m a fucking ticking time bomb, Bee. I will explode and when that happens, you need to be somewhere far away from me. Do you understand?”

“A bomb doesn’t leave anything behind,” I whispered. “It destroys itself as well as everything around it.” His dark eyes searched mine and I smiled sadly. “You keep walking away, don’t you? You keep surviving.” 

Trevor kissed me again, more slowly this time. His hands slid down my arms and he pulled me closer. “I’m starting to think I won’t survive you,” he whispered. “If I go off and hurt you…” 

I smiled as I leaned my forehead against his, then tilted my head to kiss him gently. “I absolve you of guilt, Trevor. If I get hurt, blame nobody but me.”

“That’s not good enough,” he snarled and backed me up a step again, pushing my butt against the dryer. “I just don’t get you. You brought a rabid animal into your house like it was nothing. Like you trust me. You don’t even know me. I know me and I’m telling you: don’t trust me. I will hurt you and I think it’ll kill me when I do.”

“Think?” I asked him gently. “Or hope?” He flinched and looked away from me. His hands were still on my arms and he still leaned toward me, but there was shame in his face. “It’s okay to need help,” I whispered and stroked his face. “It’s okay to need something even if it’s just a hug.”

At those words, he started to tremble, pressed his face against my shoulder for a moment and then he kissed me fiercely, clung to me, bent me backwards over the dryer until I had to hook a leg around his hip to keep from straining my back. “I know you,” he growled quietly. “I recognize you. All of a sudden, I’m not alone anymore and I don’t know what to do about it.”

I clung to him, my fingers curling against his back and my face close to his. I lunged to kiss him again and he groaned, holding me close. “Stay with me,” I begged him. “Don’t let me go. I don’t want to be alone.”

He lifted me then and I hugged my legs around his waist. I lost my towel as he lost his and he carried me up the stairs. We staggered together down the hallway, kissing and clinging until he found my bedroom and half-tossed me into the rumpled blankets. I held out my arms, pleading and he came to me, crawled into my arms and kissed me, buried his face in my shoulder and ran his hands over my skin. I tangled myself around him and he groaned. I could feel his erection pressed against my thigh, could feel him holding back. I nosed against his face and whispered, “Please, Trevor.”

Shaking, he turned his face to kiss me, then whispered back, “I don’t know what I have, Bee. I could have anything. I have no idea. I don’t… Fuck, I don’t want to ruin your life. I don’t want to kill you, hurt you.”

“It’s okay,” I said and kissed his lips. “What you have is what I want.”

“No, it’s really not,” he replied, his tone tense and a little angry. “My life is a fucking joke. I could be sick. Really sick and never know. Because it’s just me and who cares if I die? But I won’t put that on you.”

I found myself stroking his face, watching his eyes. “I would care.”

“Well, you’re new to this shit show.” His voice was sardonic and I smiled. “Never thought I’d hear myself saying this, but do you have a condom?”

I smiled, feeling a blush on my cheeks, but leaned up to kiss him and whispered, “In the bedside table. They’re a little on the old side, full disclosure.”

He fumbled with the drawer for a moment, snorted when he found some of my other things stored in that drawer, then found the condoms and unwrapped one. Once he had it on and was sliding back down into my arms again, he muttered softly, “Trevor Phillips and safe sex are usually two things that do not go together. Fuck, they should spontaneously combust when used in the same sentence. Feels like a sock on my cock.”

“Okay, Dr. Seuss,” I giggled and kissed him again. “You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want.”

“I know.” Trevor shifted against me, then paused and pressed his face against my neck. “You smell so good,” he whispered earnestly. I smiled and hooked one leg around his hip as he started to probe against me, his erection recovering from the security measures quickly enough. As he slipped inside of me, he groaned and I dropped my head back against the pillow with a happy sigh. He felt fantastic. He was smaller than I’d expected, but he knew what he was doing and I relaxed, hugging my legs around his waist as he stroked into me.

I lifted my hips and chewed my lip in satisfaction when Trevor buried his face in my shoulder and moaned. I kissed my way up his neck and teased his earlobe with my teeth. “Yes,” I whispered and he shuddered, his arms curling around me again. “Yes, please…” His movements sped up and I gasped, letting myself get lost in the sensations. 

And I was lost. I clung to Trevor’s shoulders, begging for more. He gave it to me with a low groan and the increased squeaking of the bed. I cried out and he growled in my ear, his jaw tight as he pressed his face to my shoulder. “Fuck,” he whispered, the hard sound coming sharply in my ear. “God, you’re wet. How are you so wet? Fuck.” He sped up again and I yelped, arching my back. I whimpered his name and closed my eyes with a smile when his lips fastened firmly on the curve my neck. 

“Mark me,” I begged softly and gasped when his teeth tightened on my skin. “Please, Trevor… I can’t… I… Please…” 

He fucked me hard, right into the mattress until I was screaming in climax and he was snarling his own against my shoulder. As he slowly collapsed on top of me, Trevor turned his head and tucked his cheek against mine. “Never be lonely,” he whispered, his breath rasping in his throat. “Baby, never. Never be lonely. Find me if you are. You should never be lonely.”

I wrapped my arms around him and kissed his jaw, breathing hard still. “Stay with me,” I found myself begging him. “Please. Don’t go.”

Trevor laughed softly against my neck. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. You’ve got all my clothes.” He reached down to catch the edges of the condom and withdrew slowly, his eyes sinking closed. As he pulled it off and tied it in a surprisingly neat knot, he murmured, “Y’know, a girl like you could give a guy ideas.”

I snorted, then pointed to the garbage can he was searching for. He threw away the condom and dropped back against the bed with a groan, one arm behind his head. “Ideas like what?” I grinned at him and cuddled against his side. He dropped his arm around me and kissed the top of my head, almost absently. Like we’d done this a million times before.

“You’re a high I don’t want to ever come down from,” he whispered. “I don’t belong here, Bee. But I think I want to.” I blinked and tilted my head to look at his face. He was staring at the ceiling and slowly tracing his thumb over my shoulder. “I don’t know how to be clean. I haven’t been in so long, if I ever was. I don’t think I ever was.”

I pressed a line of kisses down his shoulder to his neck. “You look clean,” I murmured. “You smell clean.”

“But I’m not.”

I grinned at him and leaned up to kiss his mouth. “Walks like a fucking duck.” He scoffed and turned his head away from me to glare at the wall. “Trevor,” I whispered and ran my hand over his cheek, gently pulling him to look at me again. “You’re as clean as you want to be. I can barely keep myself afloat out here, but if you want to stay, you’re welcome.”

Trevor watched me with those dark eyes, his brows drawn low and his lips pressed together. Very slowly, hesitantly, he reached his free hand up to stroke my face. I closed my eyes and leaned my cheek against his palm. His thumb traced my jaw as his fingertips worked into my hair. “Batgirl,” he whispered, “even clean, I’m a time bomb. A nuke in a penguin suit.”

I giggled softly at the mental image and Trevor glared at me. “With the little flippers?” I asked him and waved one arm at my side like a penguin’s wing. 

“I’m trying to tell you something serious,” Trevor snapped and rolled me onto my back, pinning me there, “and I meant a tuxedo. Not a… anyway. What I’m trying to say, you bitch, is that I don’t want to hurt you and hurting people is really the only thing I’m good at.”

“I think you’re probably good at more than that,” I said, wriggling under him with a gleeful grin. He glared at me again, then dropped his head against my shoulder when I lifted my hips to press against him. 

“Stop dodging me,” he whispered in a raspy voice. I went still at the tense tone of his voice, then ran my hands over his sides, waiting. “You are such a bitch. I like that. I like that you’re smart and quick with words and…” His hand ran down to my hip to rest there, fingers trembling a little. “You’re so soft. You feel so good. Your humor is dark, girl. Like mine. You’re so like me, Bee. That’s why it scares me. I know what the inside of my head looks like and I’m just hoping yours doesn’t look the same.” Trevor shifted so he could look at me, resting his forehead against mine. “Yesterday, I didn’t know you existed. Today, I’m so scared that I’m gonna hurt you, kill you. Yesterday, I could have killed you by accident, stray bullet, anything. And now...all I want is to know you’re safe. I don’t understand this feeling, okay? I just… don’t understand.”

I sighed and tried to get him to meet my eyes. He shifted uncomfortably and tried to avoid me. “Trevor…”

His mouth closed over mine and I sighed, melting into his touch and his kiss. As fractured as he was, being in his arms was like coming home. I felt tears starting to leak over my cheeks and blinked them away, looking up to see that they weren’t all mine. “This makes no sense,” he rasped. “What the fuck would I have to offer you? I’m just a worn out, burned out junkie.”

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pulled him back to my lips. “You can see me,” I whispered. “In one joke, you saw me and called me what I am. Caped crusader, trapped inside a librarian.” He bowed his head over my shoulder and hugged me tightly, rocking a little. I leaned and kissed his neck, tracing one finger along the dotted line tattoo. “Trevor. Nobody really sees me. Stay with me. I don’t want anything from you. Just don’t burn my house down. That’s all I need.”

 

***

 

I did see her. I stayed.


	25. Reminiscing: Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the present, Batgirl and Trevor go home.

_ Trevor _

We told the librarian our story--minus a lot of the personal details--and it took up most of the evening. I walked through the deserted building with them as my girl checked the bathrooms, threw all the breakers for the lights, went down in the elevator. I reached to hold her for the short trip down and she leaned against me with that contented sigh I’ve learned means she’s tired and happy to be headed home. When we got to the final set of doors to lock, the other librarian looked at Bee and raised her eyebrows. “I’ve got it,” she said and stood up on her tiptoes to flip a tiny black switch in the door frame above her head. Her stretch pulled all her clothes close to her and I tried not to watch her too obviously, though her coworker grinned at me when I glanced away.

“There’s nothing wrong with thinking your wife looks good,” she said primly and I immediately saw why Bee loved working here. It was full of librarians with the same level of sass she had. 

“I could have gotten that for you,” I offered as we slipped out and locked the door. “It is more my reach.”

Bee looked at me and grinned. “Naw, where’s the fun in that? Besides. I could reach.” She waved to her coworker, then paused to stare at the parking lot. “Trevor?”

“Yes’am.”

“How did you get here?”

I grinned at the perplexed expression on her face. As her coworker’s little white Camry drove away, the only remaining car was our red Kia. “Hitchhiked.”

She swatted me on the chest and I laughed. “You did not!”

“I did!” I exclaimed. “Only took one person, really. Miss Anne was going in for groceries, so I asked her to drop me off.”

“Bless that crazy old bat,” she chuckled and shook her head. “I think she loves you more than I do.”

“She’s just got a soft spot for balding men,” I said cheerfully. “I think I look like her son, too.”

“Poor guy.” She bumped shoulders with me as we crossed the parking lot and I grinned down at her. “I’m glad you came.” I tilted my head and she looked up at me, suddenly serious and quiet. “Seeing you here makes it feel more real. More like I belong here.”

I leaned against the side of our car and pulled her back into my arms. “Of course you belong here,” I whispered to her as she snuggled against my sweatshirt. It was so new still that the fleece inside was as soft as a kitten and felt awesome against my skin. With Batgirl’s arms around my waist and her face against my chest, I felt like maybe I’d gotten a glimpse of what heaven would be like. I still wasn’t sure if it was someplace I deserved to go when I finally kicked it, but if it was anything like being with her, I’d fight my way over the gate if I had to.

“Let’s go home,” she whispered and I kissed her forehead.

“Sounds like a plan.”


	26. Kissing Prompts: Distracting

“Dammit, Trevor,” I sighed as I stared up at the high shelf with its unopened package of Oreos. “What did I say about putting things where I can’t reach?”

“It’s very Alpha?” Trevor stuck his head around the corner and into the kitchen, grinning. I glared at him and gestured at the Oreos. “Oh, c’mon. You can reach that.”

“Bullshit I can,” I snapped at him. “Get me my damn Oreos, Trevor.”

He came to stand next to me, studying the distance from my shoulder to the shelf. “At least try it. I really thought you could have gotten to that.” 

I sighed in exasperation and stood on my toes. “See? I’m way too--”

Trevor’s mouth found the exposed skin of my side when my shirt rode up and I squeaked in surprise. “Too what?” he asked, eyes glittering in amusement.

“Short,” I half-snarled, “and too cranky to deal with--”

This time, he kissed me squarely on the mouth and I stopped bitching long enough to enjoy it. His arms wrapped around me and I sank against him with a long sigh as his lips worked gently and drew me away from the point of our argument. “I’ll get your Oreos,” he whispered, his lips barely brushing mine, “if you promise to share.”

“You did this on purpose,” I whispered back, trying to keep control of my breathing. He grinned.

“Maybe.”

But he was kissing me again and I wasn’t about to complain.


	27. Kissing Prompts: Early Morning

Six AM is an insanely early time to be awake on a non-work day but I had been getting up at six for the past ten years and it was a hard habit to break. I stretched and rocked myself to the edge of the bed before pausing to look back. Trevor was still sound asleep, lying on his belly with his face pressed tightly into the pillow. I smiled. I had no reason to get up yet.

I snuggled back into the blankets and tucked myself up behind him, worked my hands under his arms and around his middle until I was hugging him comfortably. He grunted softly in his sleep, but resettled almost immediately. I kissed his back, nosed against his bare skin and feathered my lips up until I could reach his shoulder, the nape of his neck, the edge of his ear. Trevor sighed softly and I smiled again; he was waking up slow for a change. “Good morning,” I whispered.

Trevor rolled over and wrapped himself around me with a happy mumble. I tucked my arms against my chest and wriggled until my nose was almost touching his. When he finally half-opened his eyes, the smile he gave me warmed me to my toes. “Morning,” he whispered back and one hand stroked my hair out of my face. When his hand stopped moving, he had one thumb against my cheek and his fingers lightly in my hair. “Can I ask a favor?”

“Sure?”

He shifted and took one of my hands from where I had them pinned between us and guided it down under the blankets, curling my fingers around his erection. “Bastard’s been giving me fits all night,” he whispered with a grin. “Mind shutting him up for me?”

I giggled and kissed him, intending to do so quickly before going under the blankets to fulfil his request, but Trevor pulled me back and kissed me again, letting it linger. After a moment, he rolled me back against the pillows and stretched himself out against me. “You don’t have to,” he murmured against my lips. “I just wanted to see if you would.”

“You know I will,” I smiled and slowly wriggled under him. He smirked at me and kissed me again, but trailed it down my chin before standing up. 

“I’ll make the coffee,” he grunted and stretched his arms over his head. “What time is it?”

I propped my cheek on my hand and said, “Six.”

Trevor stopped in mid-step toward the hallway, turned around and dove back into the bed beside me. “Why the fuck are we awake, then?” While I giggled helplessly, he rolled around in the blankets until he had stolen them all in a tight cocoon around himself, then glared at me over the edge. “That’s one pot of coffee and one blowjob you owe me now, Batgirl.”

I snickered and kneeled beside him to kiss his forehead. “You know I’m good for it. Go back to sleep, you sissy.” He just grumbled and pulled his head the rest of the way inside the cocoon.


	28. Second Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told from Trevor's perspective.

Most people understand: if you see a big bear sleeping in your yard, you leave it the fuck alone and call animal control. If you see a rabid dog wandering down the street, you leave it the fuck alone and call animal control. If you see a junkie passed out and snoring, you leave him the fuck alone and call the police. Well, unless he’s supposed to be there, I suppose. This concept is just something my wife has never grasped real well. She brought me home in the first place and she keeps insisting on waking me the fuck up.

“Trevor!” Her breathless cry woke me up seconds before she landed on my chest, grasped my face between her palms and kissed me fiercely. Distantly, I was glad she had at least said my name before she pounced on me; it gave me a chance to fight my natural instinct to punch whatever was waking me up. It took me a few to gather my remaining brain cells and fry them into action before I could successfully return her kiss. This wasn’t the first time Batgirl had jumped me to wake me up and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. I was glad it wasn’t the last. “It’s snowing,” she whispered when she let me up for air, her voice light and excited. “Trevor, come look! It’s snowing!”

“Wuhhhnhuh?” I said intelligently and let her drag me out of bed. Before I could think to reach for it myself, she had thrown a fluffy robe around me and grabbed my hand to rush down the hallway to the open kitchen/living room. “Coffee?” I asked her and she grinned.

“Priorities,” she agreed and stood on her toes to kiss me. “It’s in the pot.” She rushed to the big sliding door that looked out on our little back deck and the stand of cedar trees half-choked with honeysuckle and ivy. She had thrown the long curtains wide open and was staring into the yard with her eyes full of delight. I poured my coffee and spent a few seconds just inhaling the warm steam that rose from it.

“Caffeinating my brain,” I murmured before taking a sip and coming to stand behind her. Her curly ginger hair was loose and some of it sprang up to tickle under my nose when I leaned down to kiss the top of her head, making me smile. “I don’t get you,” I sighed when I looked out the window over her shoulder.

She hadn’t been kidding. Snow covered the deck in a thick, fluffy blanket of blinding whiteness. I squinted at it irritably, thinking of all the winters spent shoveling snow in front of my mother’s apartment. But my wife leaned back and whispered up at me, “County offices are closed,” in a sing-song voice that set my brain alight.

“Closed,” I repeated. I looked down into her face and saw her brilliant smile. “The libraries are closed?” As the coffee and Batgirl’s joyful face worked on my brain, I could feel the corners of my mouth slowly starting to turn up. “You’ve got a snow day?”

“I’ve got a snow day,” she confirmed happily. “Want waffles?”

“Hell yes,” I gasped and spun her around to kiss her. “Thank you, snow gods, for giving me the whole fucking day with my wife!” She giggled and snuggled against my chest while I let the information sink in. “Never been so fucking happy to see snow in my life,” I sighed and ran my hand down her back, then up again to between her shoulder blades.

“Instant three-day weekend,” she agreed. Her face was buried in my chest and she was all but purring there. Sometimes my Batgirl is more like a catgirl, but I’m not picky on that score. Eartha Kitt was just as hot as Yvonne Craig. I stroked her hair and let my lips rest on the top of her head “Waffles,” she said suddenly, then pronounced in her best Eddie Murphy impression, “I’m makin’ waffles!”

I let her go and she dashed to the corner pantry to get down the waffle iron and the pancake mix. I settled my butt at the disused dining table and watched her activity from behind my coffee. I loved seeing her this excited. Not a lot really made her stand-out happy. She was usually just contented with a soft smile and a comfortable shrug. I had teased her at first that her medication was sedating her and she came back at me with fire in her eyes. Nothing was sedating her, she insisted. She was just happy the way she was. Seeing her snap from calm to angry that fast had made me think twice and now that I’d been here almost a year, I knew from experience that it was true: she was just calmly happy with her life.

After a year, I was getting that way, too. It helped to have a life you loved. It helped to have someone you loved in your life. It helped to not be constantly driven by your own brain chemistry to fuck up as much as possible. Going clean helped. Good coffee every morning helped. Getting to know the neighbors helped. That one part had surprised me, really. I never would have thought rural farmers would ever have much time for someone like me, but when I showed up asking to learn how to do stuff, they warmed right up. The only thing they poked me about was when they were going to see Batgirl rounding out with a baby bat and why they didn’t see us in church. Even that was just good-natured teasing, the kind of idle family back-and-forth that said we were part of their group.

“WAFFLE!” Batgirl shouted and I put up a hand quickly to deflect the hot waffle flying frisbee-style at my face. She was already pouring more batter into the iron and I shook my head, amused.

“What about toppings or am I eating these naked?”

“You’re wearing clothes.”

“That can be changed.”

She chuckled and pulled down the maple syrup from the pantry. “You know where the peanut butter is.”

“And the butter. And the jam.” I stood up with my waffle and went to get a plate from the cupboard. “Is there any boysenberry?”

“No, we used the last of it.” She opened the waffle iron and pulled another waffle from the grid. “WAFFLE!”

I managed to swat this one down onto the plate with the first before smothering them in peanut butter and syrup. “Ooo, there’s still some strawberry rhubarb from your mom.”

“That does sound good.”

I pulled the jar of jam out of the refrigerator and set it on the island counter next to the jar of peanut butter and the bottle of syrup. I considered it for a few seconds, then said, “What does your mom know about me?”

The waffle iron clicked from red to green, but Batgirl didn’t open it immediately. When she did, the resulting waffle was darker than the others and she quietly placed it on a plate instead of throwing it at me. Me and my fat fucking mouth. “She knows I got married,” she finally answered in a low voice. “She knows I’m happy.” She didn’t look at me while she poured more batter onto the iron.

I sighed and walked over to stand behind her. She didn’t shy away when I pulled her hair to the side to kiss her cheek. “She knows your husband loves you?” She nodded. “Good.” I hugged her around the waist and pushed my nose down into her shoulder. She went through the rest of the batch of waffles without speaking and I kicked myself the whole time. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean the kill the mood.”

“It’s okay.” She unplugged the waffle iron and set it aside to cool, then turned in my arms and snuggled in against my chest. “It’s a legit question.” After a few seconds with her face pressed into my robe, she popped her face back up and said, “Waffles are getting cold.” Her smile was gamely back and she kissed my chin before heading for the island.

“Waffles,” I said happily when we had finished dressing our breakfast and were flopping down on the couch to watch Netflix. “Wife waffles.”

“Wifely waffles,” she grinned and poked me with a toe.

“Even better.”

Two episodes into the Real Ghostbusters, my wife said quietly, “Do you want to meet her?” I looked up from the dregs of my coffee and raised my eyebrows without speaking. I had a feeling this was going to be uncomfortable. “My mom.”

 _She’s ashamed of you_. I pushed the hissing voice away from my mind. It still sounded like my father, but at least I didn’t hear it as often and practice had made it easier to cope with. “I dunno,” I said. “I’m not really a meet-the-parents kinda guy. Usually, someone’s daddy is chasing me with a rifle.” I wanted to ask her if she wanted me to meet her mom but knew the kind of roundabout answer I would get. Bee was a fucking master of putting someone else at ease at her own expense. “You’re really close with her, aren’t you?”

She nodded slowly. “This has been hard,” she admitted in a soft voice. “I’m scared to tell her.”

I tried not to let that sting. It still did. “Why?”

“She’ll worry.” Bee sighed, took off her glasses, and rubbed her hands over her face. “Because she doesn’t know you, she’ll judge just like everyone else does and she’ll worry.” She re-positioned her glasses and looked at me. I was struck all over again by how pretty she was, even if she didn’t believe it. “I spent most of my life with her judging and worrying. I’m kind of tired of it. I mean, I see her perspective--”

“I’m a fucking psycho,” I offered cheerfully.

She grinned at me and shook her head. “You are not.”

“Reformed, then.”

I watched as my wife crawled across the couch and into my arms with a huff. “It’s the reformation she wouldn’t see. It’s this that she wouldn’t see.” She pressed her face into my chest and I hugged her close.

“She’d see the pit bull, not the graduate of training school,” I murmured.

“I’ve always thought of you more like a chow/retriever,” she said and looked up at me, eyes narrowed, “and you’re barely housetrained.”

“I haven’t pissed on the floor in weeks,” I protested and she laughed.

It was that laugh that kept me going sometimes. I had told her once that living with her wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. I hadn’t been lying. Even on my best days, I felt like a freak in a carnival. I still fought with invasive thoughts and impulses, still had to consciously ignore the cravings. But I loved her laugh and it kept me moving in the right direction: forward. I leaned down and kissed her, felt her arms curled up and around my neck as she kissed me back. “I love you,” I whispered. She beamed at me and I closed my eyes, breathed her name.


	29. Kissing Prompts: Hesistant

I woke up one morning to find the house empty. I frowned and patted through the blankets as if Trevor might be hiding there, then got up and snuggled into my robe. As I slowly wandered through my home, I wondered where he had gotten to. There had been a time when Trevor slept as frequently in the spare bed or on the couch as with me, but since Christmas, he was usually beside me when I woke up. In the kitchen, I found a pot of coffee ready for drinking but no other signs of Trevor. 

“Trevor?” Nothing answered my call except the coffee pot, which sighed asthmatically. 

I poured myself a cup of coffee and wandered out to the deck. There was still a chill in the early spring air and I snuggled deeper into my robe, wishing for my husband’s arms around me. I had gotten used to having Trevor close to me and not having him there felt wrong now. 

When there was still no sign of Trevor several hours later, I began to genuinely worry. Both cars were still here, so he hadn’t gone out for anything. It wasn’t unusual for him to walk to a neighbor’s house to help with morning chores, but that always left tracks in the field and there were none. I shrugged into a light jacket and walked down the driveway, wondering where he was.

When I got to the end of my driveway, I spotted tracks through the dew-heavy field across the road. I frowned to myself and shrugged before crossing to follow him. There was nothing on this property except trees and hay; the owners hadn’t finished getting their building loan in order. Wading through the tall hay soaked my shoes and jeans through, but I kept going until I found Trevor standing in the middle of an otherwise untouched field. I walked up beside him, puzzled, and just stood beside him, my shoulder against his arm. 

“I wondered if you’d come looking for me.” Trevor’s voice seemed smaller than normal and I looked up at him. He didn’t look down, only stared out at the field. “I wondered if you’d just be relieved for the peace and quiet.” 

“There’s peace and quiet,” I murmured, “and there’s an empty house.” I reached to touch his hand and he stretched his fingers, inviting. I laced my fingers between his and he squeezed gently. “Are you okay?”

“Much as I ever am.” He stood quietly for a while, then breathed my name into the cold air and whispered, “Why do you love me?”

I took a long breath and let it out again. “Because you’re like me. You’ve gone through so much worse than I have and your experiences are like mine… only magnified by a thousand. I wondered before I met you what I would look like if I really stopped caring. I know now.” His fingers twitched and I squeezed his hand. “I know that it’s possible to come back from that, too,” I continued. “I know because I came back from my worst, which was so much smaller than your worst that it’s hard to even explain in the same terms. But I came back and I believed you could come back. I...I needed you to come back.” I looked up at him. “I love you because you’re like me and I want to feel love the way you feel mine. I may not be able to get it, but I know I can give it. So I do.”

Trevor tilted his head to meet my eyes and smiled. “You love me because you can.”

I found myself blushing, but I smiled and nodded. “I guess so.” 

Slowly, Trevor leaned down toward me, his fingers still tight on mine. I stood on my toes and gently leaned against his arm until our lips brushed, just a slow touch while we watched each other. Trevor let out a long breath and cupped his free hand to my cheek before he kissed me more deeply. I curled my arm around his shoulders to return the kiss, then sank back to my heels when he let me go. “Thank you for loving me,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

I smiled at him. “You’re welcome.” I tilted my head back toward the house. “Let’s go home.”


	30. Kissing Prompts: In the Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From Trevor's perspective

**Trevor**

 

I love hearing her say my name. “TREVOR!” 

I bolted out of the nap I had been having on the couch at the sound of her voice and tried to remember what I might have done to annoy her. It didn’t happen often, even when I was trying, but when it did… 

Oh. There it was.

She came out of the bedroom with her tablet in one hand and the power cord in the other, her face stormy and a look of murder in her eyes. “How. Many. FUCKING times do I have to tell you to leave my tablet plugged in! Just because it’s fully charged doesn’t mean it will be if you unplug it and leave it running! I usually just put them to sleep, not shut down!” She threw the power cord on the couch and let the tablet land more gently on the island counter. “FUCK. I had an idea, too.”

I tried not to smile. I really did. When she turned to glare at me, she saw what I wasn’t doing though and her eyes narrowed further. “Y’know, fuck you, Trevor. You fucking did it on purpose, didn’t you? You unplugged it so my damn tablet would be dead when I went for it.”

“No,” I soothed her and walked over to her with my hands out to block any punches she might try to throw. “I wouldn’t do that to you, honey.” I leaned to kiss her and she tapped her hand against my nose. In a more violent woman, it would have been a slap. In this case, it came across more like an annoyed kitten. “So, tell me your idea instead.”

“It’s not the same,” she huffed and turned away from me, arms over her chest. She was losing momentum. Time for action.

I slipped my arms around her waist and she sighed, leaned back into my arms and I had her. She was my Batgirl again and no longer the savage beast conjured by my having tripped over her charging cable. I grinned and kissed her cheek. “C’mon,” I murmured. “Tell me.” She tilted her head to half-glare, but her lips betrayed her smile. I grinned.

“Well,” she said and put her head back on my shoulder. “I was thinking. Why the hell have I never written about an animal shelter? I only lived at one for two years.” I closed my eyes and made interested noises, just holding her while she talked herself out. 

I really love hearing her voice. 


	31. Kissing Prompts: Can't Let Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From Trevor's perspective.

**Trevor**

 

“Oo! Oo, look!” I rushed into the living room with Batgirl’s robe around my shoulders. “Name that movie.” I fluffed the robe up, struck a pose and batted my eyelashes. “Grandmama, it’s me!” I threw the robe down and back from me in a heap. “Anastasia!”

“Spoiled it,” Batgirl grinned at me from the couch. “That game only works if you don’t use a line with the title in it. A plus for the voice, though.” She sipped at her coffee and looked down at the phone in her hand, only to choke on the coffee and sputter, “Shit, I’m gonna be late.” She scrambled up from the couch and bolted the rest of her coffee, thumped the heavy stoneware mug on the island counter and ran for the front door. “See you tonight.”

“Wait!” I managed to catch the strap on her canvas bag before she could vanish out the door and pulled her back to me. She gasped, tripped and I caught her in a kiss that actually lifted her right off her feet. When I’m good, I’m good. “Love you,” I whispered.

“If the manager yells, I’m making her call you.”

I put her quickly down and kissed her nose. “Haveagoodday!” I gave her a little shove out the door while she laughed, waved madly and slammed the door after her. I peeked out after a heartbeat for impact and grinned when her face darted between door and frame to kiss me again.

“I love you, too, you dork.”


	32. Kissing Prompts: Empty Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for depression and references to disordered eating.
> 
> From Trevor's perspective.

**Trevor**

 

I knew something was wrong when her car pulled up the driveway, cut off and just sat there. She didn’t get out. The headlights went out, but the door didn’t open. I waited by the window. When she gets like this, I’m not always sure what to do. 

The door opened and she half-fell out of the car. She collected her bag, then stopped in the yard, up to her ankles in wet grass I needed to mow in spite of it being way too fucking early in the season for that shit. She didn’t move. I turned on the porch light. Her head turned toward it and a faint, sad smile crossed her lips. “Shit,” I sighed.

I opened the door and walked down the steps of the porch. I waited. She looked at me and her eyes had that same sad resignation. “I’m fine,” she said when I opened my mouth to ask. We both knew it was a lie. She walked past me, up the steps and into the house. She closed the door after her.

I sat there on the porch under the cold porch light for a long time. I knew what these moods felt like from the inside; I’d spent most of my life inside one. I didn’t know how to reach her. From outside, gravity still works and depression logic is easy to break apart. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to kiss her and hold her and tell her that all those feelings weren’t real, those thoughts were just an exaggeration, to push away her clouds and see her sunshine again. I knew just doing it wouldn’t work, though. Just like she had known they wouldn’t work for me.

I got up and went back inside, locked and deadbolted the door after me from sheer force of habit. Her bag sat abandoned beside the door, along with her shoes. Her light jacket had made it as far as the far end of the couch before she gave up on it. I found her rings and her necklace on the island counter, her work clothes in a heap in the hallway. I picked them up as I went. Just as I walked into our bedroom, the shower started and I closed my eyes, relieved. At least it wasn’t so bad that she’d given up on hygiene. 

I stripped out of my clothes and leaned on the doorway of the bathroom. “Knock knock,” I called quietly. 

“Hey,” she answered. 

“Want company?”

“Sure.”

I climbed into the shower just as she was starting to rub shampoo into her hair. I waited until she looked at me and gave me another of those sad smiles before I reached for her. Her skin was cold in spite of the hot spray of the shower, as if her emotions could leech energy from the outside world. She tipped her head back to rinse out the shampoo and when her face was clear of soap, I pulled her to me. She came easily enough and let her cheek rest against my chest. Her breathing seemed uneven for a moment and then she hiccuped against tears. I tightened my arms around her, put one hand on the back of her neck. “I’m here,” I whispered. I just held her while she cried, until she stopped crying in a slow shift of breathing. She stopped crying because she had no more energy for crying. 

My brain made the connection.

“You skipped dinner again, didn’t you?”

Her face moved against my chest, a slight nod. 

I kissed the top of her head and held her close to me, rocking. “Please eat, Batgirl,” I whispered. “Please?”

Her shoulders moved in a shrug and she pushed against me, just enough so she could stand and look at me. “Conditioner,” she said in a hollow voice and reached for the bottle. I handed it to her. She filled her palm and handed me the bottle back before distributing it between her hands and working it into her hair. 

When she reached for the soap, I stopped her hand and held her for a second. “Let me.” She almost shied away, but let me take the soap from the dish, lather it in my hands and start to soap her skin. I ran my hands over her, touching her everywhere with the focus of getting her clean. She rinsed the soap away, then paused, hand out. “Let me,” I repeated quietly.

She was shaking when I carefully washed her face with my fingertips. I stroked her eyebrows, along the bridge of her nose. I brushed my thumbs over her darkened eyelids and paused, letting the tip of one finger find the scar above her eye. “Rogue umbrella,” I whispered and she smiled. I washed her neck and along her jaw, behind her ears and finally let her go to rinse off again. When she was clean, she opened her eyes and looked at me. Her eyes were almost wary and my heart squeezed.

The shower water stopped, drained. I reached for the towel and turned back to her. She sighed, almost exasperated but still didn’t have the energy for it. “Let me,” I said again. She closed her eyes and nodded, let me towel her dry and hold her close in the circle of my arms and the towel. “I love you,” I whispered against her cheek. 

“You’re a silly man,” she replied, just as quiet. 

“Never said I wasn’t.” I stroked her wet hair and pressed my face into her neck. “I do love you, though.” Slowly, her arms came up to wrap around me. At first, I thought she might cry again, but she just leaned against me until she started to shiver. I dried myself off quickly and then pulled her with me into the bedroom. She tried to walk past me, but I gave her a little push to overcome her balance. She squeaked and collapsed on the bed with a glare that was almost her normal self again. “Stay.”

“Trevor,” she sighed. “I’m fine. Really.”

I shook my head and turned to her dresser, fishing through her unorganized drawers until I found her Deadpool t-shirt. “Arms up,” I ordered and she obeyed silently. I slipped the brushed cotton over her skin and kissed her when her face was free again. She didn’t kiss me back. It was like kissing a tree, only smoother. I tried not to feel discouraged and tipped her backwards so she squeaked again. I grabbed my own flannel pajama pants and stuffed her legs into them before she could protest. I knew she liked mine better than her own. 

“What are--”

“Shh.” I scooped her up off the bed and she gave a terrified little cry, her arms tight around my neck. She leaned hard into me, shaking and hissing tiny cusses in my ear until I put her down on the couch again. “Stay put.” 

She protested quietly while I made her a quesadilla. She protested quietly when I curled up with her on the couch. She protested when I pulled the blanket up over her and tucked her face against my chest. I just held her while she quietly protested everything I did.

And then she stopped.

Her whole body relaxed like she had given up fighting. She slumped against me and I closed my eyes, feeling her arms curling under my back a little as she snuggled me. I kissed her temple and she exhaled against my skin. “I love you, Batgirl,” I whispered. 

“I love you, too, Trevor,” she whispered back and I smiled as she fell asleep.


	33. Kissing Prompts: Unbreakable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for vomiting.

I hate being sick. There is no poetry in being sick. Being sick strips you right down to bare bones. No makeup, no hairspray. No editor, no filter.

I heaved into the toilet again and moaned, letting my head hang in spite of the smell. A stream of foul language poured out of me under my labored breath, hitting as many fucks as I could manage in the short period between intestinal revolts. The fucks continued until I felt Trevor’s hand resting between my shoulder blades. Then, I just groaned quietly. 

“Didn’t you get a flu shot?” he asked me. 

“Motherfucking shot was the wrong fucking strain,” I replied.

Trevor chuckled and I tried to lift my head to glare at him. “You swear like Negan when you’re sick.”

“I fucking swear like Negan usually,” I snorted, then gasped on another surge. It passed without surfacing and I groaned again. “Motherfucking hate being sick.” Trevor settled next to me and curled one arm around my hips. I lifted my head again. He was blurry: I tend to not wear my glasses while vomiting. “You do not have to be here for this,” I informed him.

“I’m enjoying the company,” he replied and stuck out his tongue.

“I’ll just fucking bet.” I heaved and spit weakly. “Ugh.” I could feel my hair starting to creep loose from my ponytail and tickle my cheek. I tried to blow air up the side of my cheek to push it away. 

Trevor curled a finger against my cheek and pulled the hair back, tucked it behind my ear. “It’s not forever,” he murmured. “Sick doesn’t bother me.” I laughed and shook my head slowly, trying not to jostle my sense of balance. He kept stroking my hair, pulling it back and away from my face when it fell forward. “You’re the prettiest sick girl I’ve ever been around, honestly.”

“That’s me,” I mumbled and coughed. At least it was a dry cough. “Miss fucking America.”

When I sat back up, Trevor peered into my face seriously. “Feel better?”

“No.”

“Toast?”

I bulged my cheeks at him in mock nausea. I still didn’t feel great, but I felt like the majority of the heaving had passed now. He smiled and pulled me against his chest. “Nooo,” I mumbled softly. “Don’t, Trev. I smell fucking terrible.”

He sniffed the top of my head and shrugged. “I’ve smelled worse.” His arms wound around me and he kissed my temple. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”


	34. Kissing Prompts: Breathless

My head still buzzed with the voices of over-excited children and the pounding bass lines I had tried to drive them away with on my commute home. I pulled my car into its usual spot and climbed out, only able to think about getting inside, taking my bra off and getting some coffee. The house smelled like coffee, a clear point in Trevor’s favor, and I heard the faint sizzling sounds of cheese melting to a pan. I sniffed and smiled: pizza. He knew me well.

I dropped my bag and shoes and was shedding my coat when Trevor appeared, caught my arms still trapped in the sleeves and kissed me. He kissed me like he hadn’t seen me in months, searching and hungry. When I squeaked and flailed my arms, he let go of my coat but didn’t let go of me. Instead, he ran one hand down my side to my hip and curled the other around my waist, pulling me closer. Normal after-work kisses weren’t this intense or this long, but the longer he kissed me, the more I wanted him to. I touched his cheek, then brushed my hand along his jaw and around the back of his neck. He took a step with me, backing me right up to the arm of the couch pinning me there. His mouth kept me thoroughly distracted until his hands were on my skin and I found myself gasping for air. 

Then, he let my head tip back and I clung to him, just panting and trying to reclaim my dizzied senses. In the process of kissing, I had managed to park my butt on the edge of the couch and wrap one leg around him. He grinned at me, eyes hooded and dark with interest. “Welcome home,” he whispered.

“That’s quite a welcome,” I panted softly and his grin widened. 

“Caffeine, food, or fucking?” he murmured as he brushed his lips against my neck. “They aren’t exclusive or anything. I’d just like to get an idea of the order.”

“If we fuck now, the pizza will burn,” I pointed out.

He nodded seriously and let me go so I flopped back over the arm of the couch with a squeak and landed on my back amid the discarded fleece blankets and TARDIS pillows. I heard him open the oven and remove the pizza, turn off the oven and then the distinct sound of cloth hitting the floor. “Pizza’s safe.”

“Then fuck me already,” I grinned and held out my arms for him.


	35. Kissing Prompts: Goodbyes

I was thoroughly engaged in a story idea when Trevor walked past me and paused to lean down and kiss the top of my head. “Earl wants me to help with the new stock. I’ll be back in a few hours.” He started to pull away, but I reached up without looking, grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him back down to me. I kissed him and he let out a long breath through his nose, framing my face and returning the kiss. 

“I love you,” I whispered.

Trevor grinned and nosed my face. “I love you, too. See you soon.”


	36. Easter Surprise

The first warm day of March came so late that most people thought it wouldn’t come at all. One of my favorite patrons had summarized the winter season so far colorfully: “Eat a dick, winter. Eat a big, fat, snowy dick.” The random snowfall and yo-yo-ing temperatures had messed up more than a few gardens and fruit-bearing trees and the local vineyards were scrambling to save their fall wine harvest, so I suspected he wasn’t alone in that assessment. But it did come. It came in with wet winds as I delivered a few audiobooks to a handicapped patron on the street. It came in with promises of a mild night as the children’s librarians released their butterflies into the wider world. 

And when I rolled the final few feet to my usual parking spot in the driveway, the day went out with the unexpected image of Trevor sitting on our front porch with a brindle-and-white pitbull in his lap. I slowly got out of the car and tilted my head as he grinned at me and waved. “Trevor,” I said warily as I collected my bag, “where’d the dog come from?”

“Not sure,” he replied. “I found her crying by the basement door this morning.” He rubbed down the dog’s side and patted her while her tail thumped enthusiastically on the porch planks. “How was your day?”

I walked up the few steps and sat down, offering the dog my hand. She rolled ponderously towards me to sniff my hand and eagerly slobbered all over it. “Warm. Quiet. Everyone was out enjoying the sunshine.” I eyed the dog, then my husband. “Is she… particularly round?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he agreed with a sigh. “Someone probably dumped her when she turned up preggers, poor thing. She’s barely a puppy.” His eyes flicked up to meet mine and he opened his mouth.

“No.” 

Trevor sighed. “C’mon, Bee. She’s got nowhere to go.”

I shook my head slowly. “I’m not going to own a pitbull, Trevor. No fucking way. Next thing you know, I’ll have a confederate flag on my porch and I’ll be saying ‘y’all’.” 

“She’s not a pit!” Trevor protested. He put his hands behind her ears, making them stand up. “She’s a German Shepard. Look at that face.”

“Only if a German Shepard fell out of the ugly tree,” I snorted.

“Fine, a boxer then. Seriously, there’s no way she’s a pit bull.”

I sighed and reached both hands out to the dog. She slobbered on my hands, but let me hold her face up to mine, nothing but trust and goofiness in her eyes. “If she’s not at least half pit, Trev, I’ll kiss her ass myself. Who knows what her puppies are.”

Trevor edged around the dog to press his hip against mine, leaned in and whispered my name. “Please?” I looked up at him, ready to refuse again, but his eyes were genuinely sad for a minute. “I haven’t had a dog since I was a kid,” he whispered. 

I let out a long sigh and leaned forward until he met my forehead in the middle with his own. “Fine,” I sighed. “Call the vet for an appointment and we’ll take her in Wednesday morning before work.”

“Thank you,” he murmured and kissed me. I had expected victory dances and cheering, not this serious relief. I returned his kiss and raised my eyebrows, curious. “We had a dog when I was a kid,” Trevor said with a shrug. “More mine than anyone else’s. I loved that damn dog.” 

I could hear the hovering pain and nosed his shoulder. “What happened?”

“My brother killed her.” His voice was hollow when he said it and I reached to hold him. He let me, but it was more an allowance for me than comfort for himself. The dog squirmed and put her head in his lap again, tail pounding the boards of the deck. “She wasn’t spayed, so she kept getting pregnant. He hated the sounds the puppies made, so he started kicking her whenever she rounded out. She died trying to push out one of the dead litters.” When I stroked my palm down his cheek, he turned his head slightly to kiss my fingers. “She died licking my face because I was crying. She was more worried about me. I didn’t cry much after that.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered and he turned to kiss me again. 

“It’s okay. It happened a long time ago.”

We sat quietly for a moment and then I kissed his cheek. “We’ll get her spayed after the litter.” He looked down at her and smiled while the dog wiggled happily. “Wonder who the daddy is.”

“Chihuahua,” Trevor grinned. “They’ll be all big-headed and spindly.”

I snorted. “Greyhound. All legs and teeth.” I got up and picked up my bag again. The dog immediately popped to her feet and began to dance beside the door. I eyed her and then looked at Trevor. “We have no idea if she’s housetrained. I like my hardwood floors, Trev.”

Trevor sighed and rubbed the dog’s ears. “C’mon, girl. Downstairs it is.” She followed him like he had hand-trained her and I just shook my head in amusement. A few minutes later, I heard him coming up the stairs from the basement and I bit my lip to keep from laughing. I could hear the dog’s claws and Trevor’s repeated admonishments, but when he finally got to the top of the stairs, he still had to squirm through the door and close it on her nose. The dog whined piteously and Trevor looked at me, lip pouted. “She’s gonna be lonely.”

“She’ll just have to deal,” I chuckled. “I’m not ruining my hardwood floors over a stray.”

* * *

 

By the time I was brushing my teeth, the dog was leaning on my leg and dripping slobber on my bare foot. Thankfully, she did seem to be housetrained, having requested to go outside for a pee before we settled in for the night. It was pretty clear she hadn’t been a stray for very long: she didn’t have fleas or ticks, no signs of run-ins with other animals in a community known for its turf wars between the black-and-tan hounds down the way and the coyotes that kept sneaking in along the fences. There was no denying that she was a sweet dog, too. She had mouthed Trevor’s hand once over the evening and stopped immediately when scolded.

I rinsed and spat and turned back to the bed to find Trevor and the dog already there with innocent looks on their faces. “Seriously?” I asked him. “How many other pieces of furniture do we have that she could sleep on? There’s barely enough room in that bed for the two of us, let alone a dog.”

“She’s snuggly,” Trevor protested and the dog leaned on him in demonstration. 

“She’s already been allowed upstairs,” I sighed. “Throw me some kind of compensation here, Trevor.”

“I’ll snuggle with you more.”

I shook my head as I flopped down on the bed and put my glasses on the bedside table. “Promise? It’s bad enough you’ve got a pregnant girl in our bed. I don’t want her coming between us.”

Trevor chuckled and reached to pull me under the blankets while the dog thrashed to find a place where she fit. “I’ll always cuddle you more,” he said and kissed my nose. Near our feet, the dog finally found her spot and collapsed with a doggy sigh.


	37. Little Yellow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trevor and Batgirl attend a puppy birthing. Trevor's perspective.

Perfect days don’t exist. They can start out feeling perfect: beautiful sky, low humidity, a light breeze to take off the heat. Something will always come along to ruin it, though. It’s just the law of nature. 

It was that kind of day. I was stretched out on my back on the front porch, letting the late spring sun bake me into something that would probably hurt intensely later and might also result in my being dipped in aloe vera by the hands of my lovely and caring wife. Batgirl had opened up the house to let it air out after a stifling winter and I could hear her typing over the background noise of a YouTube Let’s Play of Dead Space. I didn’t get her fondness for watching other people play video games, but there were a lot of things we didn’t understand about each other. 

It crossed my mind that I hadn’t heard from April, the waddling advertisement for Spay and Neuter Your Pets campaigns. I propped myself up on my elbows and called, “April!” I whistled for her and listened, waiting for at least a yip in response. We had let her out when I decided to sunbathe and she usually didn’t go far from the house. Her belly made it hard to get over fences and while we hadn’t fenced the yard, many of the neighbors had. 

“You see her?” Batgirl asked me from inside.

“No,” I frowned, then rocked up to sit on the steps. “April!”

A few seconds later, the door behind me opened and Batgirl came out onto the porch carrying a squeaky toy which usually brought the dog scrambling as fast as her puppy-heavy body would allow. When even her favorite toy and promises of treats didn’t bring her back, we exchanged worried looks. “We’d better start looking,” Bee sighed quietly. “I hope she’s not hurt.”

“I hope she still has those puppies on the inside,” I countered and my wife stared at me in horror. “She’s gotta be ready to pop any day now.” I stood up and kissed her quickly. “I’ll take the cedars, you take the road?”

“Since I’m wearing pants and a shirt and you aren’t?” She nodded and we headed in our opposite directions, still calling the dog.

It didn’t take long for me to locate her. April had wedged herself under the chicken coop I had found in the back thicket of cedars months ago. She was lying on her side and breathing hard, occasionally whining and the leaf litter around her was thick with slime and blood. “Baby,” I sighed and offered her my hand before she let me pet her ears. “Found her!” I hollered and heard Bee’s acknowledging call. When she joined me, I said, “Do you think we should call the vet? Or can we do this on our own?”

“I’ll call Mary and Crystal,” Bee replied. “Crystal’s a vet tech and she can be standing by. She’s closer than Bellby, too.” 

We collected blankets and towels. April let us roll her into a blanket and carry her litter-style up the hill and into the basement of the house. She cried a little, but always quieted if one of us talked to her. She was a good dog and we made sure she knew it. 

April had her head in my hands and was pausing between contractions when the flashback hit me. I closed my eyes hard against the memories, of Ryan kicking out at my dog and catching her under the ribs while she yelped. Holding her head in my hands just like this while she struggled with the dead litter, helpless and crying bitterly while she licked my hands. I was shaking by the time Bee’s hand touched my shoulder and I opened my eyes again. I realized I was crying then and reached to knuckle away the tears. “Sorry,” I said. “Just--”

“I know.” She settled beside me with her head on my shoulder, her hand resting on my thigh and the other rubbing one of April’s ears. “She was a good dog, too.”

I swear that woman knows exactly what to say to make me cry.

 

April struggled for almost four hours, but when she finally flopped down in exhaustion, her afterbirth clear and our basement floor a bloody mess, there were four puppies wriggling and squeaking beside her. We lost one and Batgirl had taken it away quickly, wrapped in a towel so I didn’t have to see it. The four that April occasionally nosed and licked at were healthy, though and ravenously hungry. Bee and I sat next to April and watched her mothering her puppies.

“She’s a good mommy,” Bee whispered. 

“She is,” I agreed with a smile and hugged her around the waist, pulling her closer. “They’re kind of a funny color, aren’t they?”

“Not so funny.” She smiled and reached to stroke April’s ears and the dog’s tail pounded on the concrete floor. “I think I know who their father is.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “When I first moved here, there was a big yellow dog, massive angry thing that hated everyone. I think he was probably golden lab or retriever mixed with chow and pit bull. He was never overtly aggressive, but he’d warn you off quick with a growl and a piss on a bush. Well, I say that but he did kill a few neighborhood dogs and a shit-ton of rabbits. I’m just glad he never caught a cat. When I started living here, he started living under the porch. He liked me well enough but he hated everyone else. I couldn’t keep a dog, especially an aggressive dog when I had family that wanted to visit, so I brought him to the shelter. I felt horrible leaving him there, but what was I going to do? I couldn’t keep him. He wasn’t neutered when I knew him and the last I heard of him, someone along the road here had adopted him. If they didn’t neuter him at the shelter before adopting him out, it’s very possible he’s the daddy.”

I chuckled. “What is it with you and aggressive men?” She gave me a dirty look and I grinned, leaned in to kiss her and she sighed, leaning back against my chest. “Thank you for not bringing me to a shelter. Or neutering me, for that matter.”

“You’re welcome. Everyone deserves a home. I couldn’t do anything for Yellow Dog, but I could for you. You’re a long shot from a dog anyway.”

“Thank you.” 

“Plus, you’re a little big to adopt out again.”

I snorted and kissed her cheek. “Bitch.”

“And proud of it.”

April let out a rattling sigh and dropped her head down, still watching us but obviously starting to feel the toll of her hours of puppy-making. As she fell deeper into sleep, the puppies nursed and squirmed and squeaked until they also fell asleep, little jelly beans of brindle and orange fur. Three were brindle and white like their mother, but one was solid orange with a shaggier coat. “Can we keep them?” I whispered and felt Batgirl starting to laugh.

“All of them?” she asked in alarm.

“Well, at least one.” I reached out and ran a fingertip down the orange puppy’s back, pulling a small squeak from the puppy and a huffed sigh from April. “Like little yellow here.”

“Are you hoping for an angry aggressive pup who only likes me?”

“There’s only room for one of those in this house,” I snorted and grinned when she leaned back to look at me upside-down. “Please,” I whispered as I leaned in to kiss her again, “just one?”

“You’ve gotta train him. April was house trained when she came, so we lucked out with her. The puppies are going to need more attention.”

“I will.” 

Batgirl sighed and shook her head, but I knew I’d won. “Fine. We can keep one.” She squirmed around until she could tuck her face against my chest and wrap her arms around me. “I can’t believe I own two pit bulls.”

“Technically, you own five right now.”

“You are not helping.”

I grinned. “Fine, you own one and a quarter pitbulls and are fostering three quarters of another. Better?”

“Except for the mental image of just a tail and a butt wandering around the house, sure.”

“I thought you liked having asses around. You tolerate me pretty well.”

“Yours is a special case.” She grinned and pulled me down to kiss her. “I love you, Trevor.”

I grinned back. “I love you, too.” As I kissed her, I whispered her name and felt her smile.


	38. Chapter 38

I got a text around a quarter to five from Trevor. “Mushroom and swiss burgers for dinner?”

“Hell yes. Need anything?”

“Fries would not go amiss. April and Yeller want treats.”

I smiled to myself and shook my head. “If I have time, I’ll stop. See you soon.” He just sent back a heart emoji and I put away my phone. April’s puppies had been adopted out fairly quickly from Caring For Creatures due to their more retriever faces. Yeller had the same heavy muzzle and massive mouth of a pit fighting dog, even if his coat was more golden retriever than pitbull. At three months old, he was all limbs and feet and massive shaggy head, but he was sweet-tempered and adored people. I returned to the circulation desk and leaned there, listening to the other circulation staffer and the adult-side shelver teasing back and forth about blowing off work early since the branch manager was on vacation.

“I keep thinking you’ve decided to go skip out on us at 4:30,” the shelver said to me when I came back and I grinned at him.

“I didn’t take either break. I am entitled to a half-hour,” I said loftily.

“Go,” he whispered. “It’s not like we’re going to turn you in.”

“Nah.” I leaned on the counter.

“Gooooo,” my other coworker whispered. “C’mon, you’ve only got ten minutes left.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “Fine. I’m cutting out early. See you guys next week.” I picked up my bag, waved to them and headed down to the parking lot.

Thursday was my Friday this week. Since I worked on Saturday, I could look forward to having Friday off to mess around with my husband and my dogs. I practically bounced across the parking lot, planning my route home by way of the grocery store. I picked up the frozen fries and a bottle of wine, dog treats and half a dozen cupcakes from the bakery. When I got home, April and Yeller were running around the front yard, besides themselves with excitement. They weren’t tied, but we had discovered that we didn’t have to stake them out as long as they had a full bucket of water nearby. Neither of them had any inclination to roam and even if they did, they were always back before the next meal. I parked the car and ran for the house, the grocery bags over my head as the dogs yelped and chased me, tails thrashing.

“Thanks for making it easy to get inside,” I said to Trevor as I came inside and closed the door on April’s nose. “These pants totally needed another coating of dog slobber and hair before I wear them again.”

“I was protecting the burgers,” he replied with a sniff but came over to kiss me, his hands held away. “I have turkey hands or I’d hug you.”

“Finish with the turkey, then,” I grinned. I spread the frozen fries on a pizza pan and reached around the frying turkey burgers to turn on the oven. “Plans for tomorrow?”

“I was thinking Voltron,” Trevor announced and dropped another patty of raw ground turkey into a sizzling pan. “I’ve never watched the originals, but Tumblr has me curious.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “I’m up for a binge-watching day with napping dogs and wine.” I held up the new bottle and wiggled it at him and Trevor studied the label with his lips in an “oooh” shape. “Speaking of which…” I turned back to the front door to let the dogs back inside.

“Shit!” Trevor cried and tried to throw the last uncooked patty into the pan.

Both dogs danced wildly around me, Yeller occasionally jumping up. He was still learning what was okay, so I scolded him gently and crouched so they could both lean against me and the puppy could lick my face. I pressed him back down and they settled fairly quickly, tails still flailing.

We ate turkey burgers smothered in mushrooms and cheese. We watched the last few episodes of Daredevil. I ate my fries with mayo and Trevor waxed poetic about poutine. April collapsed on the couch with her head in my lap while Yeller curled around Trevor’s foot. I glanced at Trevor as he put his plate down for the dog to lick clean and he smiled at me when he sat back up. “I love you,” I said softly.

“I know.” Trevor flopped sideways and April grunted in annoyance when he put his head in my lap, shoving her to the side. “I’m loveable like that.” I snorted and he rolled onto his back to grin up at me. “I love you, too.” I leaned down and kissed him while he curled one arm around my shoulder to hold me close. “Thank you.”

“For what?” I murmured.

“For loving me.” He smiled and kissed me again. “For believing there was something in here worth loving. For keeping me around even when I wasn’t cute and cuddly.”

I edged April out of the way and squirmed until I was lying beside him on the couch, then wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him. He brought his hand up and cradled my face as he returned the kiss and I felt him sigh softly. “I kept you before I loved you,” I whispered and he grinned. “You’re welcome. And thank you for staying.”

“No place I’d rather be,” he murmured and kissed me again.


	39. Dance With Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for breath play and discussions of physical abuse.

“Trevor?”

“Mm.” He swayed slightly behind me, his arms around my waist and his chin resting on top of my head.

“Can you hand me the soap?”

“I can,” he murmured. He didn’t move from his position wrapped around me and I sighed, amused.

“Will you hand me the soap?”

“Maybe later.” His hand flattened against my belly and he stroked up, then down to my hip again. “I’m happy here.”

“But I need the soap.”

Trevor sighed dramatically and reached one hand back to the soap dish. When I held up my hand, he put the sliver of green soap in my hand and I ran it under the water, scrubbing up in the cooling shower water. “You women and your soap.”

“The sooner I get clean, the sooner we can have dinner.”

“The sooner you get clean, the sooner you’ll put clothes on again.” He helped me soap my breasts and I chuckled. “Unless I can talk you into dinner naked.”

“Fajitas are not something made while naked,” I informed him as I rinsed off. I reached and pulled him into the spray with me and he leaned down to kiss me slowly. The kiss surprised me a little, mostly because we had just finished a rather enthusiastic session on the couch. When he worked one hand up into my wet hair and kissed me deeper, I struggled not to giggle.

“Is my kissing that funny?” he asked me softly, nosing my face.

“No,” I murmured back. “I’m just thinking that it seems like your rebound time was kinda short this time around.” I ran one hand down his hip, my thumb brushing his erection.

“Who are you calling kinda short?” he snorted. “You weren’t complaining half an hour ago.”

“I’m not complaining now,” I grinned.

“Riiight.” Trevor gave me a little tug, pulling me tightly against him and then leaned down to kiss me again. “Besides, don’t they say that afterglow is just foreplay for the next time?”

I giggled and leaned back to get one more rinse in the spray before turning off the shower. “I’m still not frying fajitas naked, Trevor.” I shifted around him and pulled back the curtain before starting to step out.

My foot slipped. Trevor caught me by the arm, harder than he would have liked but he was more focused on keeping me upright. We both stopped quietly and looked at each other, remembering the last time he had roughly supported me in this shower. His eyes watched my face, still full of apology. His free hand landed lightly on my hip where his fingers had bruised me with marks that lasted for more than a week. He started to say something, but I kissed him quickly. “Don’t,” I whispered. “It’s gone. Remembering it serves no purpose except to hurt us again.” He closed his eyes and nodded, then helped me get out of the tub safely.

In the kitchen, we both looked at the chicken thawing in the sink. Suddenly, cutting and frying the chicken breasts up for fajitas seemed like a massive amount of work. Trevor curled one arm around my hip and pulled me close again. The memory was still haunting him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “for what I did back then.”

I leaned back against him and sighed. “Trevor, let it go. It was a long time ago.”

“Not that long.”

I pulled away and picked up the cutting board, slipped one of the chicken breasts onto it and went back to the counter to cut it up. “Could you start the oil, please?”

“Bee,” he sighed. When I didn’t look back at him, I heard him get out the pan and pour olive oil into the bottom. The oil started to sizzle as he added spices and stirred. I turned toward him with the cutting board and he moved aside to let me slide the chicken into the pan with a shocking hiss of steam. I cut up the second breast and added it as Trevor continued to stir and flip the pieces so they cooked evenly. Without looking at me, he said, “Aren’t we supposed to be able to talk about this stuff?”

“There’s talking about things and poking at a half-healed wound to see if it still hurts.”

His head tipped and I could almost feel him watching me. “So it does still hurt.”

I glared at him. “Of course it still hurts, Trevor,” I hissed at him and he flinched. “But I forgave you when it happened. You know that.” I ran my hand over his shoulder and down his back.

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand you,” he whispered. “I’m grateful. I am so fucking thankful I met you, but I can’t even start to figure out how your mind works.” We watched the chicken as it finished cooking and Trevor turned off the burner and moved the pan to a cool spot on the stove. He caught my hand in his and turned me so he could look me in the face. “I love you, Bee. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything and I have to live with the fact that I hurt you. I bruised you, made you bleed. I…” He looked down for a second and gritted his teeth. “I hit you. I touched you when you didn’t want me to, in ways you didn’t want me to. You have every right to hate me, to be disgusted or afraid of me.”

I sighed and cupped my hands to his face, pulled him down and kissed him. “I love you, Trevor.”

His hands came up to the sides of my neck, his thumbs over my throat. He stared at me. I stared back, then closed my eyes. His hands closed, tightened until my breathing started to burn in my throat. He didn’t let up and I didn’t struggle. “I could still kill you, you know,” he whispered.

“I know,” I rasped. “If it’s useful, I don’t mind.”

His hands twitched and my breath stopped.

I couldn’t inhale. I couldn’t exhale.

I waited.

Trevor’s mouth covered mine and he exhaled into my mouth as he released his hands and I gasped in. I wrapped my arms around him and he hugged me tightly, allowing the breath to become a kiss. We clung to each other until Trevor pushed me back a step and I felt myself leaning against the island counter. “I love you,” he whispered against my lips and I smiled.

“I love you, too,” I murmured back. “I trust you.”

“Why?” His voice was pained, confused.

“Because you can hurt me,” I smiled at him and kissed him again, “but you wouldn’t. You could kill me but you won’t. Because you hold me at night and I can hear you crying because you’ve hurt me and you don’t want to again.” I stroked his face with one hand, traced his cheek with my thumb. “I love you. The hurt happened and we can’t make it un-happen. I choose to focus on the joy. I choose to remember the first time you kissed me like you loved me. I choose the Trevor who cared for me when I was hurt, not the one who did the hurting.”

“They’re the same man,” he said sadly. “Nobody really changes that much.”

I ran my hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down to kiss him again. “You choose to be the man who cares. Every day when you get up, you touch me like I’m beautiful and important. You choose to make the coffee. You choose to love me.” I nuzzled his face and Trevor pressed his lips to my temple, rocking slowly. “You choose to leave your old techniques for coping in a hole in the ground, choose to take the pills a doctor said you should. Your choices define who you are, Trevor. I know you’ll continue to choose what’s best for us because you love us, the life we have together. You may not be a different person, but you make different choices than you used to.”

“I do love us,” he whispered against my hair. “Thank you for giving me the chance to make different choices.”

“It’s why I’m here,” I grinned and Trevor chuckled softly before he framed my jaw gently with his hand and kissed me, long and slow and deep. 


End file.
